Oral Answers to Questions

INNOVATION, UNIVERSITIES AND SKILLS

The Secretary of State was asked—

Second Degrees

Katy Clark: What Government policy is on the provision of funding for those seeking to gain second degrees; and if he will make a statement.

John Denham: We have asked the funding council to redeploy, by 2010-11, £100 million of the £329 million that currently goes to support students studying for equivalent and lower qualifications. This will provide an opportunity for some 20,000 full-time equivalent students to enter higher education for the first time or to progress to a higher level who would otherwise have been turned away.

Katy Clark: My right hon. Friend is aware that many of those seeking to obtain second degrees are women intending to return to work after taking time off to look after children, people who have lost employment and are seeking to retrain, or those who have a first degree that is not relevant to the employment that they need to acquire. Does he accept in principle that the Government should provide support to such groups?

John Denham: My hon. Friend raises an important point. Although the Government have made clear their desire to reprioritise some of the funding to those who have never had the chance to go to university, we are also protecting for equivalent or lower qualification funding foundation degrees, which are a major route of vocational retraining, and a list of exempt, strategic and vulnerable subjects that are important to the economy and are, therefore, most likely to provide employment opportunities to a woman who is retraining. Even when the changes have been implemented, there will be many routes available to the women whom my hon. Friend describes who need to re-educate at a higher education level.

Mark Pritchard: The three universities nearest my constituency, Keele, Birmingham and Wolverhampton, have real concerns about the proposals. Unless the Government do a U-turn—there is no shame in that; they have done many before—there will be a detrimental impact on all the students, all the staff and, in particular, the budgets of those universities. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) rightly pointed out the other night that the impact on Wolverhampton university's budget would be equivalent to £2.5 million worth of cuts. Is that acceptable?

John Denham: I do not accept the figures that have been presented as a realistic prediction. Even if one set aside the transitional protection, which means that no institution will lose in cash terms over three years, the figures ignore the fundamental point that no money is being lost to higher education. The £100 million that is being reprioritised will be available for students who have not otherwise had the chance to go to university, so the universities that say they will lose money are effectively saying that they do not believe that they can recruit a single additional student from the vast pool of people who have never been in higher education. In reality, all those institutions are already recruiting such students successfully. They simply need to build on the efforts that they have already made. We are clear that we need to provide the transitional protection that enables those institutions to adjust the ways in which they work to make sure that that happens.

Adam Price: Since the Open university is a UK-wide institution, does the Government's policy have implications for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? Has the Secretary of State discussed the matter with his counterparts in the devolved Administrations?

John Denham: The proposals that we make affect the funding of English students. With reference to the interest that exists in the devolved Administrations, the most important answer is the one that I gave in response to the previous question. We are making sure that we have put in place the transitional protection and the support for relevant courses to ensure that important universities such as the Open university are able to recruit additional students, change their way of working, come through strongly and deliver the education that is needed. There is no reason why any student who might be planning to go from Scotland in the future should fear that the open university that they wish to attend will be damaged by our proposals.

David Willetts: May I congratulate the Secretary of State on his powers of persuasion with the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Ms Clark), who was one of the 63 Labour MPs who signed the original motion criticising the Government's policy but voted against the very motion that she had signed. She is a Member for a Scottish constituency, where the policy that she now supports—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should ask a supplementary question, not question the motives of another hon. Member: put the question to the Minister.

David Willetts: May I follow the Secretary of State's previous response and invite him to use his excellent powers of persuasion to argue that his policy should apply in Scotland as well?

John Denham: I, unlike the hon. Gentleman, respect the devolution settlement and believe that it is important. It is not my job to persuade another devolved Administration to adopt particular policies. However, as reference has been made to the debate earlier this week, I point out that it has not escaped the attention of many people—including, I am sure, many members of the Open University Students Association—that the Opposition motion did not oppose the principle behind our proposals. A number of my hon. Friends signed the early-day motion, but Tuesday's debate was about securing the interests of the institutions that would be affected by the change. The measures that I have set out secure the future of those institutions, and my right hon. and hon. Friends who supported the Government on Tuesday were right to do so.

David Willetts: That was a very complacent answer. I invite the Secretary of State to confirm that Universities UK, the Open university, Birkbeck, the university heads of pharmacy, Million Plus, the National Union of Students, the University and College Union and the CBI criticise his policy. Will he confirm that he has even united  The Guardian and the Church of England in opposition to his policy? I applaud him for creating such a broad coalition, but I thought that the new Prime Minister wanted to create broad coalitions in favour of his policies, not against them. Can he identify a single serious body in the world of higher education that supports his policy?

John Denham: One of the responsibilities of government, which I accept, is that sometimes one takes difficult decisions that are widely criticised. It is true that not everyone accepted our decision to prioritise opportunities for people who never had the chance to go to university. In Tuesday's debate, not a single voice among Conservative Members was raised on behalf on people who have never had a chance to go to university, which tells hon. Members everything they need to know about the Conservative party.

Graham Stuart: Of those studying at the Open university, 25 per cent. are doing science, maths or technology courses. The Prime Minister recently said that science, innovation and technology are crucial to any advanced industrial economy. Why is the Minister planning to make it harder for undergraduates to study those very subjects?

John Denham: The answer is that those STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—subjects are among the list of protected courses in the proposals on which the Higher Education Funding Council for England has consulted. We have yet formally to receive HEFCE's advice on its consultation and to respond to it, but I entirely share the point that has been made. We need to ensure that individuals have the opportunity to study the disciplines that are important to the economy.

Stephen Williams: I, too, congratulate the Secretary of State on persuading 63 of his colleagues to vote with him on Tuesday night. Meanwhile, back in the real world, the higher education sector remains unconvinced that this is a sensible policy, particularly in its impact on certain students whom the Government want to attract into higher education. Will he belatedly now undertake a full equalities impact study on the impact on women, older students and poorer students, and, to allow room for that study, delay implementation until 2009 when the wide-ranging review of higher education is scheduled to take place?

John Denham: It was not my powers of persuasion on Tuesday but the fact that the hon. Gentleman, whom I welcome again to his post today, spent most of his speech reading out the briefing for Labour Members of Parliament that—

David Willetts: That was the turning point.

John Denham: That was the turning point. That was what they found persuasive.
	The Department intends to conduct a full equalities impact assessment of the entire system of higher education funding when the relevant decisions have been taken. That is the right way to handle that important matter.

Academic Freedom

Si�n Simon: What definition of academic freedom his Department uses; and if he will make a statement.

Bill Rammell: Academic freedom is a fundamental principle of our higher education system. It is vital that academic staff have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and voice controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy. A definition of academic freedom setting out this principle is included in the model articles of government for higher education institutions. We expect all institutions to include such a provision, protecting academic freedom, in their governing documents.

Si�n Simon: How could such a definition be used to help combat the growth, such as it is, of extremism on university campuses, where surely, of all places, intolerance of any kind, particularly intellectual intolerance, should not be allowed to flourish?

Bill Rammell: I very much agree with the thrust of my hon. Friend's question. I recently gave a major lecture on the importance of academic freedom; I argued that within such freedom lies one of the most powerful means at our disposal to refute violent extremist views on campus and promote a cohesive community. I strongly believe that academics must use the tools of their trade to expose the faulty logic and flawed arguments of those in favour of violent, extremist solutions.

Evan Harris: The Minister will be aware from Adjournment debates of my interest in this subject, and he will know that there is statutory protection for freedom of speech on university campuses. If a lawful meeting, approved by university authorities and the police, takes place and there is a demonstration against it, does he agree that the police have a duty to ensure that the lawful meeting can go ahead, rather than be disrupted by demonstrators? Demonstrators would have the right to demonstrate, but not to prevent a meeting's right to freedom of speech.

Bill Rammell: I agree with the hon. Gentleman; he and I have discussed such issues in the House before. He, I or other people might find a whole range of views objectionable and disagree fundamentally with them, but individuals have the right to express such views at a higher education institution as long as they are within the law. That is why the Government do not support a blanket no-platform policy. The most effective way to counter and challenge views with which we fundamentally disagree is by open, rational argument.

Robert Wilson: The House is well aware of the danger of extremism on university campuses, and we understand that the Government are shortly to publish guidelines on the monitoring of extremist activity at our universities. What obligations and duties over and above those required of an ordinary UK citizen will be imposed on academics to report the activities of students?

Bill Rammell: The hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not pre-empt guidance that we will shortly publish. Nevertheless, we published guidance last year on helping institutions to secure the safety of their students. Clearly, if illegal activities are taking place, it is incumbent on any responsible citizen to deal with them and report them.

Lifelong Learning

Mark Harper: What assessment he has made of the effect that withdrawal of funding for equivalent or lower qualifications will have on lifelong learning.

Andrew MacKay: What assessment he has made of the effect that withdrawal of funding for equivalent or lower qualifications will have on lifelong learning.

Bill Rammell: We are not cutting funding to higher education; in fact, funding has been and is increasing significantly. Our decision is the right one for lifelong learning. It directs funds to those who most need them and is a fairer way to spend public money. It is the best way of making progress towards the target that 40 per cent. of the working-age population should have a higher-level qualification.

Mark Harper: I listened carefully to the Minister's answer and the Secretary of State's at the beginning. The Secretary of State referred to the full assessment that will be made as part of the review of higher education funding. Would it not be more sensible to delay the decision on the withdrawal of funding until that assessment had taken place? However persuasive Ministers were to their colleagues, they have not managed to persuade any of the institutions, including the university of Gloucestershire, which has written to me expressing great concern about the issue. If the Ministers' case was so sound, surely they would be able to use rational argument to persuade their colleagues in higher education?

Bill Rammell: I do not believe that there is a case for delay. Were we to delay, the alternative critique would be that we were not allowing institutions sufficient time to plan for the new system. Interestingly, as the Secretary of State said earlier, the Conservative party did not oppose our policy in our debates earlier this week. It offered principled opposition for just one yearuntil the 2009 commission. With respect, that is not really principled opposition, but opportunism.

Andrew MacKay: Notwithstanding the Secretary of State's characteristic good humour, we still do not know why the 63 Labour MPs who signed early-day motion 317 voted against an identical motion on Tuesday evening. Will the Minister explain? Does he agree that it adds to public cynicism?

Bill Rammell: I do not believe that that is the case at all.  [ Laughter. ] Forgive meperhaps it is not a surprise, but I do not agree with that. There was a request for reassurance that institutions will be able to cope with this pace of change, and we have set out very clearly, in detailed terms, the protections that will be available to enable them to do so. That is why people are being, and will be, reassured.

David Chaytor: Was it not the case on Tuesday night that neither of the conservative parties defending the status quo opposed the principle of this, nor did they make any constructive alternative proposals on the way forward? In my constituency, 82 per cent. of constituents have never been to university, some have never been anywhere near a university, and some do not even know what a university is. If their children and grandchildren are to have a better chance in life than they did, this transfer of funds is an essential first step.

Bill Rammell: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It was he who pointed out in the debate earlier this week that we heard not one word from the Opposition about the importance of targeting people in our communities who are not yet at first degree level. Six million adults in the workplace have the equivalent of A-level qualifications but have not yet progressed to degree level. I believe that they are our first priority in public expenditure.

Mark Lancaster: Doubtless one of the tools in the tool box that the Secretary of State used magically to convert the 86 Labour Members who signed my early-day motion was to convince them about all the exemptions regarding students currently studying for ELQ qualifications. Will he acknowledge that those exemptions account for just 4.8 per cent. of students currently studying for ELQs at the Open university? If he does not acknowledge that, will he, as he has clearly considered the matter, tell me exactly what percentage of students will be exempt?

Bill Rammell: The hon. Gentleman has bandied about several statistics this week. Earlier this week, he gave a fanciful figure about the financial impact on the Open university. The merit of his argument is not helped by exaggeration. We strongly believe that, with the protections that are in place, open institutions such as the Open university and Birkbeck are best placed to reap the rewards of the growth that we are proposing.

Vincent Cable: Speaking as somebody who tutored in the Open university when it was first established, I believe there has always been a healthy mixture of people without academic qualifications and those seeking to adapt and improve their academic qualifications. Setting one group against the other threatens to undermine one of the few lasting achievements of that Labour Government.

Bill Rammell: If one had asked Jennie Lee in 1966 whether she thought that a founding core element of the mission of the Open university was to provide degrees for people who already have them, I do not think that she would have recognised that description of its central purpose. In the hon. Gentleman's party, money always grows on trees, but in government one has to make choices and set priorities, and I believe that the interests of those who are not yet at first degree level come first.

Maria Miller: When the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Ms Clark) raised the issue of women returning to work, the Secretary of State said there were many avenues for them. The group of women who find it most difficult to get back into work after having children is that of women who have a first degree. Can the Minister go further by guaranteeing that those women will not be penalised by his proposals, and will he acknowledge their important role in the future of our economy?

Bill Rammell: I am indeed concerned about the interests of women. Of the 20 million adults within the workplace who do not have a first degree, 10 million are women. As the Secretary of State explained, women who already have a first degree will be able to take a vocational foundation degree, which is in many senses the most effective way to retrain, and to apply for one of the strategically important and vulnerable exempted subjects. They will be able to consider those avenues, and that will help them to retrain and reskill.

Science

Ann Winterton: If he will increase financial support for science in the north-west and if he will make a statement.

Ian Pearson: The science budget is not allocated on a regional basis. However, it will grow over the next three years from 3.4 billion this year to 4 billion in 2010-11. Universities in the north-west are well placed to share in that growth.

Ann Winterton: Is the Minister aware of the potential damage that will be caused by the Government's reduction in support for academic research in science and its impact on Manchester university's school of physics and astronomy, including Jodrell Bank observatory, one of the world's leading astronomical centres, which last year celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Lovell telescope? Will he review urgently the 80 million shortfall in research funding to prevent damage to the United Kingdom's research capacity and effectiveness in physical science, and to its international reputation?

Ian Pearson: It might help the House if I put a couple of facts on record. The budget of the Science and Technology Facilities Council is going up over the next three years by 13.6 per cent.an increase of 185 million over the budgetary period. The STFC will spend 1.9 billion during that three-year period, a significant proportion of which will be spent in the north-west. Like other research councils, the STFC has to make some difficult decisions, and it has to decide what its priorities should be. The Government are concerned about the health of all the disciplines, which is one of the reasons we have asked Research Councils UK to undertake a series of reviews of the health of the disciplines, starting with physics. Bill Wakeham will lead that review, and its terms and references have been scoped out.

Brian Iddon: The noble Lord Sainsbury of Turville created three important science sites in Britain at Harwell, near Oxford, where the diamond synchrotron project is now operating, and one at Daresbury in Cheshire, which serves all the northern universities. Is my hon. Friend aware that 300 to 400 jobsthree quarters of the staff at the Daresbury siteare at risk due to the 80 million shortfall in the STFC budget? I recognise what my hon. Friend says about significant increases in the STFC budget, but it appears to have been badly handled in this financial year.

Ian Pearson: The Government remain absolutely committed to developing Daresbury and Harwell as sites and innovation campuses. Figures have been quoted in some of the press in the north-west about potential job losses, and I say in response that for a number of years there have been plans to close the second generation light source, or SRS, and some redundancies will be associated with that. Because of the difficult decisions the STFC has had to make, it has announced a voluntary redundancy programme for all its sites, not just Harwell, but Daresbury and in Scotland as well. It will be some time before the pattern of voluntary redundancies becomes clear. I do not think that it is right to say that there is a definite figure for job losses at Daresbury or anywhere else. The Government will, of course, continue to monitor the situation closely.

Phil Willis: Dr. Brian Cox of Manchester university's school of physics and astronomy has said:
	Scientific research is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
	I am concerned that most of the cuts that will occur as a result of the 80 million shortfall will not be to major facilities, but to small grants going to physics and astrophysics departments, not only in the north-west, but throughout the country. What assurances can the Minister give that that bedrock of blue skies research in physics and astrophysics, which brought us things such as the MRI scanner, will be protected?

Ian Pearson: I agree with Dr. Brian Cox that scientific research is not a luxury, but an absolute necessity, and in the north-west a great deal of world-class scientific research is conducted. During the past few weeks, the university of Liverpool have been developing a model that can predict the risk of any person developing lung cancer in a five-year period. The university of Manchester, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, has discovered a key process that may be involved in the spread of cancer, which could lead to new treatments to stop 80 to 90 per cent. of cancers in their tracks. A great deal of research into other matters, too, is being undertaken at north-west universities. As I said earlier, the budgets of all research councils have grownfor example, the STFC budget has increased by 13.6 per cent. and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's budget has increased significantly. However, it is up to research councils to determine their priorities, based on their best assessment of the science. There will be change because we live in a changing world and difficult decisions have to be taken, but it is best if those best placed to make the judgments are allowed to do so.

Adam Afriyie: My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) and other hon. Members have demonstrated the effects around the country of the 80 million deficit in the science budget. The problems are also manifesting themselves internationally through our potential withdrawal from the linear collider project among others. The Minister, given his responsibility, must have some interest in our embarrassing withdrawal. Doubtless, he shares some of the embarrassment, but does he accept any responsibility for the problems that are affecting our international reputation?

Ian Pearson: I have a deep and abiding interest in science and the ability of our science base to contribute to our economic prosperity and social well-being in future. I passionately believe that it is vital to continue to invest in science. That is one of the reasons for the Government's doubling the science budget in the past 10 years. It will triple by 2010-11.
	I ask the hon. Gentleman to look at some of the facts: the STFC's budget is increasing by 13.6 per cent. and the overall science budget is increasing from 3.4 billion to 4 billion. Yes, difficult decisions must be made. On particle physics, the STFC says that its priority is CERNI believe that that is right and that it will be recognised as such by the scientific community.

Adult Apprenticeships

Stephen Hepburn: What steps he is taking to increase the number of people taking up adult apprenticeships.

David Lammy: We have announced that, for the first time, funding will be targeted specifically at expanding apprenticeships for adults aged over 25. That will mean 30,000 additional such apprenticeships costing 90 million over the next three years.

Stephen Hepburn: Unemployment among the over-25sthe very group at which adult apprenticeships are targetedis double the national average in large areas of the north-east of England. Does my hon. Friend take that into consideration when allocating resources?

David Lammy: The north-east was the first area that I visited to look at apprenticeships. My hon. Friend is right that unemployment remains a problem in the north-east, certainly in his constituency. I want to reassure him that one of the criteria for ensuring that we get extra adult apprenticeships is linking them to the unemployed as a priority group.

Tony Baldry: Ministers have said that impartial advice on adult apprenticeships is available from learndirect and the next steps agency, which are both operated by the Learning and Skills Council. The difficulty is that the LSC is almost invisible in constituencies such as mine. What qualitative research is the Department undertaking to ascertain the LSC's success at engaging with employers, especially small and medium-sized employers? All the Department's laudable schemes will be as nothing if there is no connection between the LSC and local employers.

David Lammy: We must recognise that there has been an increase in apprenticeships, led by the Learning and Skills Council. However, we should also acknowledge that we set up the apprenticeship review precisely to consider issues about the national leadership and profile of apprenticeships and their relevance to medium-sized and smaller employers.

John Hayes: Ministerial questions and answers are often characterised by spin and bombast. I therefore hope that the Under-Secretary will answer a straightforward and short question. A few weeks ago, on 21 November, the Prime Minister said that there were 250,000 apprentices. Just before Christmas, as the Under-Secretary knows, official figures were released detailing whether apprenticeship figures had gone up or down. Do they show that the number of apprentices at level 2 and level 3 is greater or less than the number that the Prime Minister cited in November? I have the figures here, in case the Under-Secretary does not.

David Lammy: And the hon. Gentleman talks about bombast and spin! He knows that when we talk about apprentices, what is important as a statement of fact is the number of apprentices starting and then completing. Apprenticeships last for different periods across the country. They are not like university courses; they do not start in September and end three years later in June. They start at different times. I can confirm that the average number over the past three years is 250,000. I have to say that when we inherited apprenticeships in 1997, there was no inspection and the completion rate was less than 25 per cent. We therefore make no apology for ensuring quality and ensuring that some employers and providers are not in the system, which accounts for the drop most recently.

Learning and Skills Council

Anne McIntosh: When he last met the chief executive of the Learning and Skills Council.

John Denham: I last met Mark Haysom, the chief executive of the Learning and Skills Council, on 12 December. Ministers in my Department regularly meet the LSC chief executive as part of the overall accountability and performance framework.

Anne McIntosh: I am grateful for the Secretary of State's reply. As he will know, the predecessor of the Learning and Skills Council was the training and enterprise council. In North Yorkshire there were good relations between businesses and the local TEC. I now find that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) mentioned, the Learning and Skills Council tends to be invisible to local businesses. What plans does the Secretary of State have to encourage the LSC to engage positively with local businesses to sell the skills and business training that it offers?

John Denham: A number of different measures are being taken forward. First, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State announced over the Christmas recess that LSC funding for small and medium-sized enterprises for management training and training to understand their skills needs will increase from 4 million to 30 million. That gives the LSC a vastly increased budget with which to offer a practical and useful service to those businesses that want to understand their skills needs.
	Secondly, as our response to the Leitch report made clear, we are keen to encourage the development of local employment and skills boards, as is the LSC, which will bring together training providers and employers locally to create a forum in which to discuss with the LSC how its funding is used in that area. We want that bottom-up influence on the use of LSC funding to grow in the years to come, because I acknowledge that, in the process of driving up standards in educationfor example, through the improvement in the completion of apprenticeships, which is one of the LSC's real achievementsthe LSC has at times been felt to be insensitive to local needs. We recognise that, and so does the chief executive of the LSC. I hope that in the years ahead the hon. Lady will see the sort of flexibility that she is looking for.

Rob Marris: Can my right hon. Friend explain to me what the point of the LSC is?

John Denham: The answer is that the Government need a mechanism to distribute the record sums of funding to deliver adult education. The amount of funding going to adult skills over the next three years will increase by 17 per cent. That will cover everything from basic numeracy and literacy to level 2 and level 3 qualifications and Train to Gain. The question for the Government is always whether every one of those decisions should be taken directly by Ministers or somebody working directly for them.

Rob Marris: Yes.

John Denham: Well, my hon. Friend expresses the view that that should always be the case, but I think that there are strong advantages in keeping some distance between the practical day-to-day decisions taken locally and Ministers. Two Opposition Members have today talked about the need to ensure that funding is available locally. Some degree of separation between Ministers and those funding decisions is desirable. That separation should not be total, nor should the arrangements always be exactly the same as they are today; however, I am not sure that we would be better served by simply having such a huge sum of money administered by Departments and Ministers.

Apprenticeships

Paul Clark: What recent discussions his Department has had on the availability of apprenticeships; and if he will make a statement.

David Lammy: Alongside announcing investment of more than 1 billion in apprenticeships, we are introducing a new national online matching service. We will publish the outcomes of our review of apprenticeships early this year.

Paul Clark: I thank my hon. Friend for that response and I welcome the expansion in the number of apprenticeships. Along with that review will come further development. My constituents in Gillingham and Rainham will undoubtedly benefit from apprenticeships. I am worried, however. As this is a regeneration area where much work has been done on identifying shortfalls in skills opportunities and where we need to attract different business sectors, will the Minister ensure that his work matches the provision of services with the expectations identified through other work in other Departments and through local partnerships?

David Lammy: My hon. Friend is right. His area is a growth area requiring substantial housing development over the forthcoming period and the Olympics are not far away, so we need to ensure that our sector skills councils work in tandem with the apprenticeships scheme to produce growth in sectors such as construction across the piece. In respect of big national schemes such as housing, it is important for local adults and young people to come in, secure apprenticeships and benefit the local area.

Mark Field: In answer to the main question and in the earlier exchange on adult apprenticeships, the Minister made much of the quantity of apprenticeships put in place by the Government. Will he give more emphasis to considerations of qualitynot just having an inspection regime, but, more importantly, ensuring that our current apprenticeships are relevant for the global skills that will be required for the decades ahead?

David Lammy: Yes. Key to ensuring quality is inspection, which I have to tell the hon. Gentleman did not exist before. It is also key to ensure completion of apprenticeships, which has increased from below 25 per cent. to 63 per cent.another achievement. It is also important that employers are confident in our apprenticeships, so I was pleased to hear Sir Terry Leahy, chief executive of Tesco, saying:
	I am a huge fan of apprenticeships because of the benefits they bring to the individual and business.

Bill Olner: Being an apprentice does not mean only learning a trade in a certain discipline; it provides good discipline in many things that affect people's livelihoods. I would like the Minister to recognise the status of the time-served apprentice, whether female or male. Once that is established, people in this country will be as attracted to apprenticeships as people are in such countries as Germany.

David Lammy: My hon. Friend puts the case brilliantly. It is important to ensure that this group of young people has the same status in our society, frankly, as graduates. That is what we are seeking to achieve in the apprenticeship review, as we understand that, in the end, an apprentice is mentored and assisted in routine, discipline and dedication, which are skills that parents across the country want for their young people. We must ensure that we celebrate the success of these young people, which is exactly what we will seek to achieve in the months ahead.

Open University

Michael Jack: If he will make a statement on his Department's proposals for funding for the Open university in 2008-09.

John Denham: Funding for individual universities is for the Higher Education Funding Council to determine on the basis of the grant letter that we expect to issue in the near future. We have already announced that for higher education as a whole, there will be a funding increase of 2.5 per cent. in real terms in each of the next three years. The Government's priorities, including employer engagement, widening participation and more opportunities for mature learners who have so far missed out on higher education, will create excellent opportunities for the Open university over the coming years.

Michael Jack: Notwithstanding his answer, the Secretary of State knows that his proposals for equivalent or lower qualifications will deprive the Open university of a stream of funding. I have read the report of the debate on this subject, but could he enlighten me as to where I can find the body of evidence that justifies the changes that he has proposed and that shows new students are being deprived by the current arrangements? When will there be proper consultation on a proposal that appears to have been introduced without any discussion with colleges such as Birkbeck, or with the Open university?

John Denham: The evidence can be found in the Leitch report, which clearly described the need to increase the number of graduates in the work force by 2020. That means that people who would not otherwise have the chance to go to university can do so. The evidence is based on international comparisonscomparisons with what our major competitors are doingand tells us where we need to be in terms of the skills of our work force in order to be able to compete internationally. Certainly there is evidence of the potential for that, as was mentioned earlier in respect of the number of people who are already qualified to level 3those who have reached the normal level for entry to university, but have not had the chance to go there. The challengeand I do not shy away from itis to encourage higher education institutions to reach out to that group of students, and I believe that they will succeed in doing that.

Topical Questions

Paul Burstow: If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

John Denham: Last week, in pursuit of my departmental responsibilities, I launched a consultation on how the provision of English for speakers of other languages can make the biggest possible contribution to community cohesion and integration by prioritising assistance to those with a long-term commitment to building their lives in this country.

Paul Burstow: Given that learning in retirement has been shown to have health benefitsprolonging life and as a consequence reducing the burdens on our national health service and social service care budgetswill the Secretary of State or his ministerial team look again at the redefinition of the vocational courses currently provided by institutions such as the Sutton college of liberal arts and lifelong learning in my constituency? The narrowing of the definition has meant that courses that many older people have come to love, rely on and enjoy over a number of years are being priced out of their pockets, and that is having knock-on effects on costs in the health service and elsewhere.

John Denham: The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point. I will continue to defend the way in which the Government have concentrated resources on building up the skills and qualifications of people of working age for reasons set out in the Leitch report, but education that is undertaken purely for fulfilment, enlightenment and general personal developmentanother purpose of education, which is important throughout lifematters to the Government as well. Next week I shall launch a consultation on how informal adult education of that sort can be developed in the years to come. Yesterday I consulted the University of The Third Age, the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, the BBC, Help the Aged and the association representing museums and galleriesa wide variety of organisations. I think that this is an important challenge for the Government and for society as a whole, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will participate in the consultation when it is under way.

Paul Clark: At the end of November, our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister launched a multi-million pound plan for the regeneration area of the Thames Gateway. An integral part of that plan was the skills, training and opportunities sector. What progress has my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made with the commitment to deliver three new campuses throughout the gateway area? Will he accept an invitation to visit

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is just about enough for the Minister to handle.

John Denham: My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue because the plans for new campuses are not only exciting, but some elements of them are unique, particularly the proposal that all students who gain a level 3 qualification be given the chance to progress to higher education. Progress is being made: the university of Essex in Southend had its first intake of undergraduates in September 2007, and further developments are in the pipeline. However, I would very much like to take up my hon. Friend's invitation to visit the campuses that are in, or that serve, his area to see for myself the progress that is being made.

Nicholas Winterton: To follow on from the question of the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), does the Secretary of State agree that colleges have an increasing role to play in the provision of vocational education? Many millions of pounds have been spent on the college in Macclesfield; it is part of the new learning zone, and it is very welcome and is doing a wonderful job. What increased support can the Secretary of State give to colleges, which exist to provide the skilled people this country needs for the future?

John Denham: Part of the support is obviously the Government's spending, which is increasing as I mentioned earlier: there will be a 17 per cent. increase in spending on adult skills over the next three years. Secondly, there is a major capital programmemore than 2 billion will be invested in the further education and training estate colleges, improving them to world-class standards to develop specialisation over the next three years. The hon. Gentleman did not ask his question in a partisan spirit, but I will point out that there was no capital programme for further education in 1997; we have already spent more than 2 billion on further education colleges, with another 2 billion to come in the years ahead.

Joan Humble: Will the Secretary of State outline what plans he has to advertise and promote the Government's new and exciting package of student support, so that especially young people from families from which nobody has ever been to university respond, and do so before the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service deadline of just next week and therefore have an opportunity to access university education from September?

Bill Rammell: I very much agree with my hon. Friend. We have been running a major TV, radio and DVD advertising campaign to get across the benefits of the new system of student financial support. Indeed, last week we launched the First to Go campaign, targeting that one-third of young people from families from which nobody has previously gone to university. We must get across the fact that under the new system two-thirds of students will be eligible for non-repayable grants, which is in stark contrast to the system we inherited from the last Government.

Andrew MacKay: In the light of revelations that almost half the colleges on the Department's list of approved providers for overseas students are bogus, what action will the Secretary of State take to deal with that, and does he agree that it is a very serious problem that adds to illegal immigration?

Bill Rammell: We need to get the balance right. Overseas students are a significant benefit to our universities and to the country; they are worth about 5 billion to the UK economy. However, we have to tackle illegal immigration. That is why we established the education and training register three years ago. Since thenI regard this as a virtue of the system124 colleges have been removed from that register. We now conduct unannounced visits to institutions that wish to go on to the register, and I believe that the introduction of the new Australian points-based immigration system will give us greater powers to identify bogus colleges and remove them from the list.

Fiona Mactaggart: Men who live in Slough earn about 450 a week, yet men who work in Slough earn 550 a week on average. That is a reflection of the low skills levels of the residents I represent. They are working with local business to try to tackle that. A striking finding from the research we did with local businesses is that they want soft skillsthey want people with a determination to learn. What can the Government do to help to promote soft skills, and enable ordinary people to get the kind of work that is available in Slough, which my constituents cannot access because of their lack of skills?

David Lammy: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. She rightly says that such skills are what employers are identifyingindeed, that was the first thing on the agenda of the new business council that the Prime Minister set up. We have asked the new Commission for Employment and Skills, led by Sir Mike Rake, to examine how we can improve on this issue. More than 1 million of funds within Train to Gain will be available for businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises in particular. Part of those funds will be able to be used by small businesses in particular, where managers and owners recognise a problem and want to deal with it. We are taking this matter seriously, and I suspect that the new commission will make proposals later this year.

Chris Mole: May I ask the Minister for Science and Innovation whether he has visited the survey ship James Cook? If he has not, will he make efforts to do so in order to lend his authority to the work that it does, using tools such as the remote submersible Isis, in exploring the under-sea ecology, and which through international co-operation is adding hugely to mankind's knowledge of those environments?

Ian Pearson: I have not been on the James Cook, but I would be delighted to do so in the future. I am aware of some of the wonderful research work that it does. Obtaining a greater understanding of our oceans and of how climatic conditions are changing, as they are at the moment, is important in supporting the overall picture that we have on climate change. Ensuring that we get a better understanding and better predictive models is one of our important priorities.

Tim Boswell: Ministers have a job to do to explain away the decline in the number of apprenticeships. Perhaps less controversially, may I ask the Minister whether he agrees that it is essential that future employers will want to take on the apprentices who have qualified? Can he give us the assurance that he will pay particular attention to the destinations of qualified apprentices and to their being able to obtain long-term employment, rather than merely being able to complete the course?

John Denham: It is obviously important that apprenticeships lead to secure employment. Of course, the crucial part of an apprenticeship is that an employer knows that the individual has a solid grounding in the world of work, as well as the particular technical and vocational skills that go with it. The apprenticeship review that I hope we will publish in the fairly near future will set out how we strengthen the leadership of the apprenticeship programme. I hope that it will find ways of demonstrating more clearly that the programme is delivering what we want, which is an increase in the number of people both going on to apprenticeships and successfully completing them. Those are clearly the real-world outcomes that we need to be able to measure and report on.

David Chaytor: Can my right hon. Friend tell us about the progress that has been made in respect of diplomas as a means of entry to universities? Specifically, what is the attitude of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service to diplomas? What discussions has he had with the Russell group of universities about their attitude to diplomas?

Bill Rammell: My hon. Friend raises an exceedingly important point. If diplomas are to work, as we strongly believe they can and will, we must ensure that they are seen as a legitimate entry means to university. The recent decision by UCAS on the tariff for the diploma is an encouraging example. The participation of the higher education sector in the development of the diplomas is crucial, and we need to ensure that people who take the diplomas can see them as a means of progressing right the way through the education system to university.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: I know that my hon. Friend is aware of the concern in the science community, in particular the physics sector, about the allocation of science funding, not least from the volume of questions asked by hon. Members this morning. I am sure that many will welcome the review of science funding announced by the Secretary of State. I am not certain that institutions that have invested heavily in physics, such as Durham university in my constituency, will be comforted by simply referring the matter to the research councils. Is there more that the Government could do to protect physics research in those excellent institutions, so that they remain economically competitive in terms of international research?

John Denham: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. It is important to make a big statement of principle on this issue. The Haldane principle, established many years ago, says that Ministers should not intervene directly in the funding decisions of research councils. That is to protect the autonomy of research councils in deciding where research should take place. When the Science and Technology Facilities Council made its proposals, despite its above-inflation increase in grant, to reduce certain areas of physics expenditure, it would not have been appropriate to breach the Haldane principle, to step in and to take money away from the Medical Research Council and give it to the STFC. However, because of the concerns, I did my job by asking Professor Bill Wakeham, the vice-chancellor of Southampton university, to produce a report on the health of physics as a discipline, which will consider our overall funding of physics, including those areas that have attracted controversy. As the Secretary of State, I have done what it is right for me to do and

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have to stop the Secretary of State there.

Philip Davies: In the light of an earlier answer, do the cases of Frank Ellis and David Coleman not show the extent to which academic freedom is under threat, and how fragile it is in this country? Does the Secretary of State agree that academics should have the freedom to explore unpopular and unconventional views in universities of all places, and not be put off by the intolerant, illiberal and politically correct bullies?

Bill Rammell: When we compare academic freedom in this country to that in many other countries, we find it is very robust and at the heart of a successful university system. I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman that academic freedom is a key tool in tackling violent, extremist ideology, and we need to push that forward strongly.

UK Energy Policy

John Hutton: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement on UK energy policy. Our strategy, as set out in our energy White Paper last year, is designed to achieve two objectivesfirst, to ensure that the UK has access to secure energy supplies and, secondly and together with other countries, to tackle the global challenge of climate change.
	The competition for energy resources is increasing. Access to supplies across the world is becoming increasingly politicised. As a result, the cost of energy is rising. And few who have been exposed to the science of climate change now doubt the immediacy of the threat to our planet. As the UK shifts from being a net energy exporter to a net importer, our ability to source a diverse range of secure, competitively priced energy supplies will be one of the most important challenges that we face as a countryaffecting our economy, our environment and, ultimately, our national security.
	Our strategy to manage these risks is based on three key elements, which are increasing energy efficiency and helping people and businesses make a real contribution to solving the challenges we face; using the widest range of cleaner energy sources; and ensuring that the UK is as energy independent of any one supplier, country or technology as possible. Let me touch on each of these.
	We have already set out the measures that we are taking on energy efficiency. These could result in savings of between 25 tonnes and 42 million tonnes of CO2 by 2020. We will keep these measures under review, going further and faster wherever we can. We are also planning for the amount of UK electricity supplied from renewable sources to treble by 2015. The Energy Bill, published today, will strengthen the renewables obligation and help to speed up the deployment of an even greater share of energy from renewable sources. Offshore wind, wave and tidal power will all gain from that new approach.
	The Government are also committed to funding one of the world's first commercial-scale demonstrations of carbon capture and storage. CCS is a technology that has the potential to make a critical contribution to tackling climate change. Measures in the Energy Bill will enable that to move forward.
	If we are to be as energy independent as possible, it is also vital, first, that we continue to press the case for energy market liberalisation in the EU, and secondly, that we look to maximise economic domestic energy production. Finally, we must ensure that energy companies have the widest range of options open to them when it comes to investment in new low-carbon power generation.
	Over the next two decades, we will need to replace a third of the UK's generating capacity, and by 2050 our electricity will need to be largely low-carbon, so we must be clear about the potential role of nuclear power. In October, we concluded a full and extensive consultation across the UK, seeking people's views on whether new nuclear power should play a continuing role in providing Britain with the energy that it needs. Today I am publishing the Government's response in the form of a White Paper alongside our analysis of the comments that we received. I can confirm that, having carefully considered the responses, the Government believe that new nuclear power stations should have a role to play in this country's future energy mix alongside other low-carbon sources. The Government's view is that it is in the public interest to allow energy companies the option of investing in new nuclear power stations and that we should therefore take the active steps necessary to facilitate that.
	Nuclear power has provided us with safe and secure supplies of electricity for more than half a century.

Paul Flynn: At enormous cost.

John Hutton: It is one of the few proven low-carbon technologies that can provide base load electricity. Nuclear power currently provides us with around 19 per cent. of our electricity requirements.
	Nuclear power will help us to meet our twin energy challenges: ensuring secure supplies and tackling climate change. First, a continuing role for nuclear power will contribute to the diversity of our energy supplies. Secondly, it will help us meet our emissions reduction targets, as every new nuclear power station will save the same amount of carbon emissions as are generated by about 1 million households. The entire lifecycle emissions from nuclear powerfrom uranium mining through to waste managementare only between 2 and 6 per cent. of those from gas for every unit of electricity generated. Thirdly, nuclear power will reduce the costs of meeting our energy goals. Analysis of future gas and carbon price scenarios shows that nuclear is affordable and provides one of the cheapest electricity options available to reduce our carbon emissions.  [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Flynn must be quiet. It is unfair to the Secretary of State while he is making a statement to the House.

John Hutton: Our energy suppliers recognise that, and in a world of carbon markets and high fossil fuel prices, they recognise that nuclear power makes commercial sense. For those reasons, I do not intend to set some artificial cap on the proportion of electricity that the UK should be able to generate either from nuclear power or from any other source of low-carbon energy. That would not be consistent with our long-term national interest. Given that nuclear power is a tried and tested, safe and secure form of low-carbon technology, it would be wrong in principle to rule it out now from playing any role in the UK's energy future.
	Not surprisingly, however, some important concerns were expressed during the consultation about nuclear power. They fall in to four broad categories: safety and security, waste management, costs, and the impact of nuclear power on investment in alternative low-carbon technologies. Ensuring the safety and security of new nuclear provision will remain a top priority. Having reviewed the evidence put forward and the advice of independent regulators, we are confident that we have a robust regulatory framework. The International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that our regulatory framework is mature, flexible and transparent, with highly trained and experienced inspectors.
	However, it is right that we should work closely with the regulators to explore ways of enhancing their efficiency in dealing with new nuclear power stations. I am keen, therefore, to ensure that the UK has the most effective regulatory regime in the world. I believe that it could be a critical differentiator for the UK in securing access to international investment in new nuclear facilities. I have asked Dr. Tim Stone to take that work forward, alongside his continuing work on the financial arrangements regarding new nuclear power stations.
	Secondly, during the consultation, many argued that a permanent solution for dealing with existing waste must be developed before new waste is created. We have considered the evidence fully, and our conclusion is that geological disposal is both technically possible and the right approach for managing existing and new higher-activity waste. It will be many years, of course, before a disposal facility is built, but we are satisfied that interim storage will hold waste from existing and any new power stations safely and securely for as long as is necessary. In addition, before development consents for new nuclear power station's are granted, the Government will need to be satisfied that effective arrangements exist, or will exist, to manage and dispose of the waste that those stations will produce.
	The third concern relates to cost. It will be for energy companies, not the Government, to fund, develop and build new nuclear power stations. That will include meeting the full costs of decommissioning and each operator's full share of the waste management costs. The Bill includes provisions to ensure that, and transparency in the operation of the arrangements will be essential.
	So in order to increase public and industry confidence, we will establish a new, independent body to advise on the financial arrangements to cover operators' waste and decommissioning costs. The advice of that new body will be made public. The nuclear White Paper published today sets out a clear timetable for action to enable the building of the first new nuclear power station, which I hope will be completed well before 2020. The Planning Bill will improve the speed and efficiency of the planning system for nationally significant infrastructure, including new nuclear power stations, while giving local people a greater opportunity to have their say. A strategic siting assessment, to be completed by 2009, will help identify the most suitable sites for new build. We expect that applications will focus on areas in the vicinity of existing nuclear facilities. Work is already under way on assessing the safety of the new generation of reactors.
	Finally, we must work with our EU partners to strengthen the EU emissions trading scheme to give potential investors confidence in a continuing carbon market. We look forward to the Commission's proposals later this month. I remain firmly of the view that there should and will be room for all forms of low-carbon power technologies to play a role in helping the UK meet its energy objectives in the future. Nuclear power can be only one aspect of our energy mix as, on its own, it cannot resolve all the challenges that we face. Meeting those challenges requires the full implementation of our energy and climate change strategy, with nuclear taking its place alongside other low-carbon technologies. The Energy Bill will ensure that we have a legislative framework enabling all of those technologies to make a positive contribution to our future requirements for cleaner and more secure energy.
	Giving the go-ahead today that new nuclear power should play a role in providing the UK with clean, secure and affordable energy is in our country's vital long-term interest. I therefore invite energy companies today to bring forward plans to build and operate new nuclear power stations. Set against the challenges of climate change and security of supply, the evidence in support of new nuclear power stations is compelling. We should positively embrace the opportunity of delivering this important part of our energy policy.
	I commend this statement to the House.

Alan Duncan: May I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement?
	There has never been a more pressing time for responsible policy making. Carbon emissions are changing our climate, we are paying $100 for a barrel of oil and we are facing a clear and massive energy shortfall. It is our duty to set political scrapping aside so that we can make sure that we do what is right for the country. So let me make it absolutely clear that, where we can find agreement with the Government, we are up for it and we will reach that agreement.
	Our vision on nuclear is clear: we must refine the planning system, set a price for carbon to establish a long-term climate for investment, and ensure that there is clarity on waste and decommissioning. On no account, however, should there be any kind of subsidy for nuclear power. Judging by what the Secretary of State has just said, our position is, by and large, similar to the Government's. If business wants to invest in new nuclear power stations on that basis, it should be free to do so, and it should know that the investment climate will remain stable under any Conservative Government. Any such investment must not be allowed to detract from unrelenting effort to improve efficiency and to encourage renewable technologies, microgeneration, decentralised energy and feed-in tariffs.
	The first of our concernsand those of investorsis the apparent weakness of our national skills base. Is it not the case that the nuclear installations inspectorate cannot find, recruit, train and retain the number of skilled employees it requires to assess and approve the different types of reactor for which licences are sought? Is it the Secretary of State's policy to require the NII simply to accept or reject the proven designs submitted to it, or will it be empowered to reject the endless subsequent design adjustments that have so dogged the industry in the past?
	Both the Government's policy and ours is that there must be no subsidy. Although nuclear companies claim that they do not want subsidies, suspicions remain that the industry will end up asking for them, either through subsidised waste disposal or guaranteed off-take agreements. Is the Secretary of State satisfied that the industry will not later request some form of subsidy?
	Will the Secretary of State tell us more about the authority of the new advisory board that he intends to set up? How will it assess and confirm the honesty, accuracy and integrity of new-build projects, and might he not prefer to set up that board on a statutory basis?
	On the question of waste, what do the Government mean by their reference to the full share of waste management costs rather than to the full costs of waste disposal? Who exactly will pay for what? On decommissioning, we accept that companies will set money aside, but how can the Government be confident that their economic modelling is correct, and what would happen if a nuclear company went bankrupt?
	We need a long-term price on carbon, but the present carbon regime is weak. The EU emissions trading scheme is insufficiently robust. Does the Secretary of State agree with us that it needs to be underpinned by a possible carbon tax? In the spirit of the responsible approach that we wish to engender, does the right hon. Gentleman accept that it is illogical to continue with the climate change levy, which taxes nuclear, when a carbon regime should release nuclear from carbon penalties and affect only methods that create carbon?
	We shall study with the greatest care the broader proposals set out in the White Paper and the Energy Bill. We note in passing that the Government appear to be putting no limit on the number of new nuclear power stations that might be built. We regret that the Government seem to have rejected feed-in tariffs, even for microgeneration, but we welcomeat least as a first steptheir proposal to band the renewables obligation to give more balanced support to emerging technologies in a way that removes the perverse bias towards onshore wind and methane.
	We are critical of the delay in respect of carbon capture and concerned about the contradictions in the Government's policy. Britain was ahead of the game; now, it is not. How can the Government say that it is not their policy to pick one technology over another when they have done exactly that in determining the terms of their carbon capture competition?
	Whatever happens to nuclear, it is clear that it is part of a much bigger picture. If we are to have secure, affordable and green energy in 20 years' time, we must do much more to encourage energy efficiency, we must achieve a fundamental shift toward microgeneration and decentralised energy, and we must lead the world in taking advantage of renewable and new energy technology. Today's statement is just one part of that process. The true test of the Government's determination will be whether they continue to put together all the pieces of the energy jigsaw.

John Hutton: I broadly welcome what the hon. Gentleman says. All of us Labour Members will welcome what I hope is the end of the flip-flopping on nuclear policy that we have witnessed from the Opposition in recent months.  [Interruption.] We probably need to move on. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support the Planning Bill's progress through the House, because it is a critical part of speeding up the introduction of low-carbon technologies. So far, his party has been lukewarm in its support for that legislation. We have set out a full, balanced and diverse energy policy that includes support for renewables and diversified energy systems. Nuclear will be one part of our policy in future, not the sum total of it.
	The hon. Gentleman raised a number of specific points about nuclear, including on reactor safety procedures. Of course, that is properly and responsibly a matter for the nuclear installations inspectorate, but clearly its decisions could have important financial implications for potential new nuclear investors. As it is a matter for the NII, I do not want to comment on any aspect of the safety and approval system. On his point about subsidy, there will not be a subsidy for new nuclear, and we have made that absolutely clear. As for the new body that he asked about, we will consider all the options. As I say, the Energy Bill is published today; its Committee stage will start in the next few weeks, and there will be plenty of opportunity to consider the argument then. He asked how the body would do its job. We will need to get good, decent, experienced people to serve on it, and I am sure that there will not be a shortage of people prepared to do that.
	The hon. Gentleman asked what was meant by the full share of decommissioning costs. Each energy company that wants to operate a new nuclear power station will have to meet its full share of the cost of new nuclear waste. I do not think that that policy is unclear. Of course, what each company's share will be needs to be resolved, because it will obviously depend on how many nuclear power stations that operator runs. There will be an opportunity later in the spring for us to consult fully on the details of the financial mechanisms that we are proposing. I hope that the broad principles will be available for the Committee considering the Energy Bill later next month.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about the financial modelling for the economics of new nuclear. We have proceeded on a prudent, conservative basisI hope that he will like thatin terms of understanding the modelling of nuclear economics in future. We have taken the best international evidence from the International Energy Agency and others to form the basis of our calculations. On carbon pricing, we are waiting to see new proposals from the Commission on the ETS. We will keep all our options open for the long term to make sure that investors have sufficient confidence that the ETS will work in the way that we want it to. There has to be a robust, increasing price for carbon; it is a pollutant, and we have to make sure that we regard CO2 in that way.
	The hon. Gentleman raised his familiar arguments about feed-in tariffs and the renewables obligation. I am sure that there will be other occasions when we can consider the detail of those matters. Finally, I do not accept his view that the UK has slipped when it comes to carbon capture and storage. We are one of only three countries in the world to have signalled their willingness to invest and support the demonstration of a commercial-scale carbon capture and storage project. The others are the US and Norway. That puts the UK in a global leadership role; we are not losing ground on CCS.

Elliot Morley: There is much to welcome in the energy White Paper, and of course we cannot separate energy policy from the overriding need to tackle climate change, but will my right hon. Friend confirm that there has been nothing to stop anyone coming forward with a suggestion for a nuclear power station in the past 20 years? He can understand why people will ask, What has suddenly changed? On carbon prices, is he talking about some form of carbon price guarantee? On subsidies, will he make it clear that the obscene windfall profits for generators from free carbon allocation needs to be looked into at some point?

John Hutton: I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for all his years of service as a Minister in the Government. On his point about the ETS, we will have to wait and see what proposals come forward from the Commission later this month, but I have tried to put forward in the House today our view that we need a strengthening of the ETS. The issue of allocations and allowances will have to be looked at carefully as part of that.
	My right hon. Friend's more fundamental question was about what had changed. It is of course true that any company could have brought forward a proposal to open or operate a new nuclear power plant, but they would not do so unless there was a clear planning framework and a view from Government that such a plant could be an acceptable way forward. Today, that signal is being given, but it was not previously. That is why there have not been new applications for some considerable time. The other things that have changed are the science of climate change and the economics of nuclear power, to which I referred, including carbon markets. That is leading to a totally different situation.

Steve Webb: I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, just in case we had not read it in the newspapers last week.
	I am not clear about what the Secretary of State has just said. As the right hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) asked, what has changed? The Secretary of State said that, following a second sham consultation, the Government have come up with the answer that they first thought of, which is hardly a surprise. He said that the Government would now take the active steps necessary to facilitate new nuclear, but we are still not clear what they are. We still do not know how we will dispose of the waste. How are companies meant to invest with certainty, unless the Government give them guarantees and subsidies? Can he give us a cast-iron guarantee that there will be no subsidies at any stage of the entire process? Can he put that on the record?
	Is there not a danger that new nuclear will lock us rigidly to a technology for the best part of a century, at a time when other technologies such as carbon capture and storage and renewables are evolving practically every day? Is not the danger that the technology will be obsolete by the time that we get the first, small amount of new nuclear power?
	What about before 2020? We have an energy crisis now. Does he agree with his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett), who said:
	It would have been foolish to announce...that we would embark on a new generation of nuclear power stations because that would have guaranteed that we would not make the necessary investment and effort in both energy efficiency and in renewables.?[ Official Report, 24 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 32.]
	She was right. Why does he not agree with his predecessor that going ahead with new nuclear inevitably crowds out renewables and energy efficiency, in terms of Government time, expertise, and manpower? Why are the Government so slow on such issues? Why are we producing half the renewable energy of the rest of Europe, when we have the resources to do far more?
	What about fuel poverty? The Secretary of State did not mention it. Will the Energy Bill include anything on mandatory social tariffs? There are too many people in this country living in fuel poverty, and the statement offered them no hope. I cannot decide whether new nuclear is a white elephant or a red herring, but it clearly is not the answer to the energy problems that we face today.

John Hutton: I am saddened but not entirely surprised by that response. I am particularly disappointed that the hon. Gentleman did not understand what I said in my statement. If he would like me to send him a copy with bolder type, so that he can understand it, I shall be happy to do so. It may be helpful if I cleared up one or two confusions under which he is labouring. We are not mandating the use of nuclear power.

Steve Webb: I appreciate that.

John Hutton: Well then, obviously the hon. Gentleman has understood my statement. We are not giving planning permission today for new power stations, and we will not subsidise them; I have made that absolutely clear. If power companies want to invest in other forms of cleaner technology, there is obviously nothing stopping them doing so. Those are decisions that the energy operators or companies will make. It is transparent from the hon. Gentleman's contribution that we in this House could benefit from some fresh thinking, instead of a rehash of all the old prejudices that have confused the debate for so long. We want open minds, not closed minds. I am all in favour of reducing emissions, and we can start with what comes out of the hon. Gentleman's mouth.

Adam Ingram: I thank my right hon. Friend for the statement. It will be particularly welcomed in my constituency, the home of British Energy. May I draw his attention to the fact that thousands of jobs in Scotland are tied up in the nuclear industry? It is vital to the science, engineering and technology base of the Scottish economy. Will he use his persuasive powers to try to convince the Administration in Holyrood, led by the Scottish National party, of the error of their ways, and to make them understand the vitality of the industry and its importance in the energy equation?

John Hutton: On my right hon. Friend's latter point, I shall certainly do that. We invited Scottish Ministers to support a Sewel motion in the Scottish Parliament to facilitate the operation of the energy clauses of the Bill on a UK-wide basis. That would have been sensible, because the clauses are designed to ensure that there is no subsidy going into the costs of nuclear waste decommissioning and disposal. It is a missed opportunity.
	My right hon. Friend is right about the manufacturing consequences of the announcements that we are making today. There could be a renaissance in UK power engineering, with significant consequences in constituencies all over the United Kingdom. I hope that that is another reason why hon. Members will support what we are trying to do.

Peter Luff: I am in no doubt that today's statement from the right hon. Gentleman represents a very big step forward and a welcome one in progress towards building a new generation of nuclear power stations. In that context, I am particularly glad about the response of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan), which underlines the fact that there is now broad cross-party support for the issue in the House, which is genuinely welcome. Another key test that the Trade and Industry Committee laid down in its report 18 months ago related to a carbon price. The Secretary of State referred to that in his response. There is not much in his statement about that, and there is not much in the documentation. Will he repeat to the House his assurance that if the second phase proposals to the Commission are not strong enough, he will take unilateral steps in the United Kingdom to provide a firm price for carbon?

John Hutton: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the work that he and his colleagues on the Select Committee are doing. I agree that if there is cross-party consensus on these matters, that would be a tremendously good thing for the long-term future of our country. In relation to carbon markets, the most sensible thing for us all to do is to wait and see what the Commission proposes. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will look carefully at those proposals. We do not rule out any option, as I said, but it is important that the carbon price is strengthened in subsequent phases of the emissions trading scheme. That will be important for the economics of nuclear, and will be the right signal for our approach to climate change.

Alan Whitehead: My right hon. Friend draws attention to the fact that we will have to replace one third of our power plants by 2020 or so. Bearing in mind the existing published material, including that from the Health and Safety Executive, his Department and various other agencies, on the timetable for justification for site search, planning permission and so on, does he accept that it is unlikely that there will be any new nuclear power plant on stream by the time we have to replace that one third of our energy plant? Does he therefore accept that our concentration now should be on replacing that one third of energy with renewable energy, to make sure that that new one third of power plant is indeed low-carbon?

John Hutton: We need to do all those things. I tried to make it clear in my response to the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, that our argument today is not that nuclear can fix all the problems. That would clearly be the wrong argument, but we should not rule nuclear out because on its own it cannot meet all the challenges. My argument today is that it has a role to play. I do not believe that it is unlikely that there will be new nuclear power stations operating in the UK by the middle of the 2020s. It is likely that there will be several nuclear power stations operating by that stage. We should also remember that it is not just the 2020 target towards which we must aim our sightsit is 2050. Between 2020 and 2050 the challenge of responding to the science of climate change will intensify, not become easier to deal with. That is why it would be wrong in principle to rule out now one proven form of low- carbon technology.

John Gummer: I welcome the statement from the Minister and from our Front-Bench spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan), and I look forward to being able to work on the progress of a Sizewell C. Does the Minister recognise that it will be much more difficult to do that if the second half of the Planning Bill is not changed? My constituents accept that the decision on the safety of nuclear power should be made here centrally, but when it comes to a discussion about the much needed road changes and so on for such a large construction, they want to have an inspector locally to whom they can put their case. If they do not, we will hold up the proposals to a degree that the right hon. Gentleman will find unimaginable. He must give local people direct influence, not hand the matter over to a quango. They want an inspector.

John Hutton: I welcome the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's comments. I had the good fortune to be in his constituency yesterday to look at Sizewell B, which is a phenomenal success storyprobably the most successful pressurised water reactor in the world. It is coming towards the end of 445 days of full load capacity without a break. That is an extraordinary achievement, and I congratulate his constituents on it. His comments in relation to the Planning Bill will have been heard. The Bill is in Committee, and there will be an opportunity to consider the detail of that. As a point of information, which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not need but others might, the Sizewell B inquiry took 340 days. It dealt with local planning issues for only 30 of those 340 days, so anyone who argues that the current system is defensible does not live in the real world.

Michael Meacher: Bearing in mind, first, that taxpayers will pay more for nuclear electricity to cover decommissioning costs and will still have to pay for any shortfall, which could run into billions; secondly, that taxpayers will have to pay the massive construction costs for storing hundreds of thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive waste; thirdly, that taxpayers will also be called on, if necessary, to guarantee a minimum price of carbon; and, fourthly, that the last round of nuclear build led to the country and taxpayers having to pay 5 billion to bail the nuclear industry out of bankruptcy, as well as 70 billion to deal with the waste, is not the whole nuclear project the mother of all white elephants?

John Hutton: No, it is not. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend takes that view. He raised a number of specific points about decommissioning and waste disposal. We all accept that the responsibility for dealing with the legacy waste from the Magnox and advanced gas-cooled reactors will occur on the balance sheet of Governments for some considerable time. That is right, and there is no point pretending otherwise. Clearly, taxpayers will be involved to that extent. My statement was about the future of nuclear power. In a nutshell, we should learn from what has happened, and we can do so. There is a different way of doing it. We should be open-minded about the future. I know that my right hon. Friend follows these arguments closely. For me, the science of climate change is changing my understanding of these matters. It is imperative in our national interest that we do not take a decision now that we would rue in future. To deny future generations the benefits of nuclear power would be entirely the wrong thing to do.

Michael Howard: I, too, welcome the Secretary of State's statement and the response from my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan). Is the Secretary of State aware that British Energy has recently objected to proposals to expand Lydd airport in my constituency, because of the effect that that might have on the existing nuclear power station at Dungeness and a possible future station on that site? In view of his statement today, will the right hon. Gentleman make representations to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to call in the airport application and hold a public inquiry, so that the effects of the airport proposals on the nuclear power station and on the local environment more generally can be subjected to independent public scrutiny?

John Hutton: I welcome the support from the right hon. and learned Gentleman for what we are trying to do. On his specific point about Lydd and the planning application, I am completely unaware of those issues, but as we say in the trade, I will cause inquiries to be made.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Flynn, you may speak now.

Paul Flynn: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. Why on earth are we repeating the nuclear folly of the last years, when one power station was 14 years late, there were vast cost overruns, and 75 billion was required to manage the waste? The new thinking on waste is to bury it in a hole in the ground, which was the answer 40 years ago. I appeal to the Government to turn away from this atrocious decision and turn to the renewables, which are practical and cheap, especially marine power, which has long been neglected, tidal powers and the other marine powers, which are clean, non-carbon, practical, British and eternal?

John Hutton: We are making significant support available so that the renewable sources of energy that my hon. Friend mentioned can come to fruition. Through the renewables obligation, all of us are subsidising renewable power. It is the right thing to do. We are not subsidising nuclear. So I do not believe that what I said today will in any way crowd out from the energy mix of the UK in the future a proper and growing role for renewable power.

John Hemming: The Government seem to have rejected the idea of the feed-in tariff for the UK, but in Germany it has massively increased the amount of renewables. Will the Government at least stop lobbying within the EU to stop feed-in tariffs?

John Hutton: The renewables obligation is a genuine market mechanism and that is why it has been successful. It has overseen a rapid increase in renewable energy in the UK and we should stick with what works. The feed-in tariff in Germany has undoubtedly incentivised microgeneration in particular, but a significant extra cost has been borne by consumers as a result.

Andrew Miller: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the effect of his statement today on future waste streams is quite small because of the historical legacy and the inefficiency of previous systems and waste from the weapons programme? Will he also ensure that as part of the ongoing work that is undertaken, work is done through Sellafield Ltd and the university sector to ensure that improvements are made in the exploitation of those waste streams for future power sources?

John Hutton: Yes, it would be right and proper for us to look at all those options. Primarily, that will be the responsibility of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and others, but it is worth making it clear that the new generation of reactors is likely to produce significantly less waste than Magnox and AGR, and that has to be a good thing.

William Cash: The Minister may know that recently I initiated a debate in Westminster Hall on clean coal technology. Given the UK's vast coal reserves and the fact that he has said that he has an open mind about these matters, will he be a little more specific today with respect to the opportunities that could be made available for clean coal technology, perhaps with regard also to the question of Medway and the opportunities for exporting our technology to China?

John Hutton: With great respect to the hon. Gentleman, the Kingsnorth Medway application is a current application and at some point it will come to me to be approved, so it would be improper for me to say anything about that today.
	Coal has an exciting role to play in future. The successful demonstration project in carbon capture and storage will be critical. If CCS does not work, we will have to work twice as hard on energy efficiency, renewables and other sorts of low-carbon technology to make good the deficit, but if we are prepared to back the right projectpost-combustion coal is the right way to take CCS forward, partly because it would suit the UK's requirements, but it also has significant global application, given what is happening in China and other emerging economiesthe UK could, rather unlike the hon. Gentleman, take an important global leadership role in supporting exciting new clean coal technology in the future, and I hope that he will support that.

Richard Caborn: I welcome my right hon. Friend's clear leadership in terms of the two big issues of security of supply and climate change, but also in terms of my constituency and the engineering industry. Last night I was talking to Graham Honeyman at Forgemasters, and in the light of this decision it is giving serious consideration to an investment in a 15,000 tonne open die forging press, one of the largest in the world, and the associated melting and engineering capacity that goes with that, because there is a chronic lack of capacity globally for such programmes and many others. In the light of this statement it is important that consideration is now given to the supply chain of that so that we can capitalise for UK Ltd more fully than we have done before.

John Hutton: I welcome my right hon. Friend's comments. He is absolutely right in relation to the supply chain and the industrial matters that touch on the important issue of new nuclear in the UK. Forgemasters is an excellent company. I have had the benefit of seeing at first hand its extraordinary facilities and expertise. We will need to invest significantly in the nuclear skills industry and in engineering if the UK is to take advantage of this opportunity, and I look forward to working with my right hon. Friend in Sheffield and elsewhere to make that happen.

Jacqui Lait: I too welcome the statements from both Front-Bench spokesmen on the reconsideration of nuclear power, but the Secretary of State mentioned the Planning Bill. May we take it as read that the White Paper is a draft national policy statement, and, if so, how does he plan to take forward consultation and what plans does he have for inviting the House to consider the White Paper as a national planning statement?

John Hutton: We need to take forward the detailed work on a nuclear national policy statement and that work is under way. I do not think that the national policy statement will be the White Paper; we need to do more work on that. The NPS will need to be as site specific as it possibly can be in relation to possible future nuclear sites. I understand that there will be an opportunity for the House to approve nuclear national policy statements about all of the national policy statements, and that will enhance the democratic credibility around planning for major infrastructure projects in the future.

Chris Mullin: Does my right hon. Friend accept that although he may be right in his analysis, one of the reasons for scepticism is that the nuclear industry has a long history of misleading the public and previous Governments about the costs, safety and aspects of waste disposal? What makes him think that he has not been misled this time?

John Hutton: There is no doubt that many people in the country have real concerns about nuclear going forward, and we have heard some of those expressed today and we heard them expressed during the nuclear consultation exercise. It is a subject of great emotion for many people. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept my assurance that we have looked carefullymy officials, Ministers, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and previous Ministers in this roleat these issues. We are in a different set of situations now. The science and the economics have changed, and the nuclear engineering capacity and capability have also changed significantly. The simple question for all of us today is not whether we should consent to an individual nuclear power station or mandate power companies to use nuclearthat is not what I am talking aboutbut whether we want to rule out for all time the possible contribution that a proven, and it is proven, form of low-carbon technology could make to tackling climate change and energy security problems in the UK. It would be entirely the wrong thing to do today to rule out this technology in perpetuity knowing that it could make a significant difference. That is not just my view but the view of many others in the scientific community and the Sustainable Development Commission and others.

Michael Jack: I welcome the Secretary of State's statement and the reply of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan), but the right hon. Gentleman will be aware that my constituency is the home of the majority of nuclear fuel manufacture in the UK. What assurances can he give me today that the NDA will enter into meaningful discussions with Toshiba Westinghouse to ensure that a suitable business model can be developed to make sure that we can sustain the manufacture at that site of nuclear fuel for the benefit of the UK and to realise the benefits of fuel and energy security for the UK?

John Hutton: Again, I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman says. In relation to Springfields, these are matters for the NDA to resolve and work through. We have given it the executive responsibility to handle these matters and it should get on with it. I hope that he will be at least partly reassured to know that I want to see the UK gain the maximum that it can for its industrial sectors and manufacturing capacities from what we seek to do. I am sure that it is also the NDA's view, in managing the business and taking it forward, that it needs to maximise every opportunity for new business, growth and employment in the UK nuclear industry. That will be my priority and I will ensure that Ian Roxbrough and the NDA board are aware of that.

David Kidney: On the question of investment in alternative low-carbon technologies, I welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement during the recent recess, not repeated in today's statement, of a major expansion in offshore wind power. Does he agree that between now and 2020, that decision has much more significance for our secure energy supplies and cutting carbon emissions than his nuclear decision today? Will he confirm that the contracts for the interconnectors to bring the electricity from offshore to the coast and from the coast to the national grid will soon be in place, a matter of great importance to the power industries in Stafford?

John Hutton: I can certainly confirm that work is under way to make sure that we can take full advantage of the extraordinary opportunity that offshore wind offers the UK. In the short term, my hon. Friend is also absolutely right that this is what we should be focusing on. Work is under way, particularly in relation to the point about transmission access. That is critical. There is precious little point in building offshore wind turbines if we cannot connect them to the grid, so we had better make sure that we have that issued sorted.

Michael Weir: I do not suppose that it will come as a total surprise to the Secretary of State that the Scottish National party remains fully opposed to new nuclear power stations; fortunately, the SNP Government in Scotland will not allow new such stations in our country. I remind the Secretary of State that that stand is supported by many Labour MSPs.
	May I press the Secretary of State further on the question of financing the containment and guarding of nuclear waste for a period in excess of recorded human history? In the White Paper, he talks about using an exercise in waste-cost modelling to set a fixed price or upper limit for nuclear operators. Can he tell us how that price will be calculated and how he will ensure that it is paid? Will generators have to provide security for future costs at the outset, or is he talking about a one-off payment when they put the waste in the depository?

John Hutton: On the hon. Gentleman's first point about the attitude of Scottish Parliament Ministers, I should say that that is obviously a matter for them. The Bill and the White Paper respect the devolution settlement. I think that those Ministers are making a mistake and that their stand has more to do with a political stunt than taking a responsible long-term decision in the best interests of Scottish electricity consumers and the wider UK perspective. I regret the stand that those Ministers have taken, and I believe that they will come to regret it too.
	On the hon. Gentleman's point on financing, I should say that a lot of the detail is set out in the White Paper. I do not want to go through all the detail in this response, but the clauses will apply only to England, and not to Scotland, in respect of the technical plan and other issues; the hon. Gentleman should not be too worried about them. In February, there will be an extensive consultation setting out in more detail how the particulars of the provisions will work. As I said, I hope that that will be of assistance to the Select Committee.

Jamie Reed: May I congratulate the Secretary of State, the Minister for Energy and the Prime Minister on their courage and wisdom in making today's decision, which is long overdue. I welcome it.
	The Secretary of State knows that my constituency is home to the single largest concentration of British nuclear workers in the country. Following today's announcement, will he work with me to ensure that, although there will be multinational efforts in part, the delivery of new reactors in this country will be predicated on British workers, British nuclear expertise, British companies and British skills and experience?

John Hutton: May I reciprocate my hon. Friend's warm feelings? He is my constituency neighbour; I see locally and in this place the excellent work that he does as an advocate for his constituents, and I am aware of the arguments that he makes for the UK nuclear industry. He has done a great deal to help the decision that we have announced today. The UK and his constituents will be well placed to take full economic advantage of new nuclear technology, and what is good for the UK nuclear industry is certainly good for my hon. Friend's constituency.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: I welcome the Secretary of State's statement because of my interest in Hinckley Point.
	West Somerset and Sedgemoor district councils have been working on a framework document for local people to get planning gain over the life of the nuclear industry; Hinckley Point has been around since 1957. Will the Secretary of State consider forming some sort of framework agreement extending from central Government to local government, so that the benefits come straight to a community fund or some other form of organisation that could benefit local people directly in their areas?

John Hutton: I am happy to consider what the hon. Gentleman has said, although such matters are primarily for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

Joan Humble: I welcome the Secretary of State's comments about renewables, but as he is well aware, the fishermen of Fleetwoodand the ferry operators that transport their goods from Fleetwood to Northern Irelandare concerned about the large number, and size, of offshore wind farms proposed for the Irish sea. Will the Secretary of State ensure that there are meaningful discussions between those whose livelihoods are affected by those developments and the energy operators so that there can be a solution that satisfies both sides?

John Hutton: I certainly recognise the issue that my hon. Friend has raised; she and I have already discussed it a number of times, as fishermen in my constituency have raised similar concerns with me. As we set about the process of siting further offshore wind turbines, of course a full and proper consultation will be necessary. Furthermore, an effective strategic environmental assessment of the proposals will have to be made. I am sure that that will give my hon. Friend's constituents the opportunity to get involved in the decision making.

Ian Taylor: I congratulate the Secretary of State on standing up to the muddle-headed thinking of the environmental organisations that claim to be green but are against nuclear power. His statement has provided a clear framework for going forward. Will he confirm that he will consider some of the research and development implications of the White Paper? For example, it is still not possible safely to channel the variable supply from renewables through the grid. More research is needed on that issue.
	We still need to consider pre-emission and not just post-combustion carbon capture and we genuinely need more science and engineers for the development of power stations. I hope that the Secretary of State will work with his colleagues to ensure that specific skills targets and encouragement for research grants are given to the relevant people.

John Hutton: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his words. I agree that we are at the beginning of the process, not the end. A lot of work will need to be done on a number of different issueshe referred to science, engineering and skills and I accept what he said. The Government have a role to play and they need to play it.
	Obviously, we considered carefully whether we could support a variety of different technologies through the competition process for CCS. We had clear legal and other advice that the right thing was to be clear about which technology we were inviting interest in and bids for. The competition would have been much more complicated if those basic ground rules had not been properly established. There are opportunities across the European Union for other types of project to be supported. The European Commission is seeking to develop 12 demonstration projects in the EU, and I hope that there will be other opportunities for other technologies to be explored fully.

Robert Smith: The Secretary of State has confidence in nuclear power, but does he not have concerns when he considers Finland? The latest plant there is already two years behind schedule and running over budget only three years after construction started. Has the Secretary of State taken that into account in his long-term planning?
	The competition for carbon capture and storage may be difficult, but the Government's job is to do difficult things, not make things easy by making exclusions. If the competition were genuine, it would have embraced the full variety of technologies.

John Hutton: I tried to say that there would be opportunities for other forms of CCS technologies to be properly developed. We are not against that. However, in this country we have to be clear about the ground rules for the competition, and we have done that. We have acted properly and prudently, taking into account the advice that we have received.
	The hon. Gentleman made a wider point about nuclear power. The project that he mentioned has run into difficulties; that is a matter of fact. However, it is quite wrong to conclude from that any general or wider lessons for the UK.

Colin Challen: We have to be honest and recognise that the statement is as full of holes as the Sellafield reprocessing plant. Margaret Thatcher promised 10 new nuclear power plants and delivered one. We have heard about the Finnish experience and know that Germany, which is tackling climate change with a thorough energy policy, is eradicating the possibility of new nuclear plants there. When does my right hon. Friend anticipate that the first new nuclear plants will be commissioned and how many will we get?

John Hutton: As I tried to say in my statement, I am not going to set a limit or attempt to calculate the number; that is not for Ministers to do in an energy market that operates on liberal parameters. Industry estimates suggest that the first such nuclear power station could be operational in the UK by 2017. I think that an optimistic assessment, but it is what the industry is saying.
	To those who sneer about the contribution of nuclear power, and many in the House have done so, I simply repeat what I said in my statement: we should keep an open mind and not rule out the potential benefits of nuclear power. That, for example, was the view of the Sustainable Development Commission and I think that it is right. Nuclear power could make a significant contribution to carbon mitigation in the UK. Furthermore, the view of Patrick Moore, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace, is interesting; in April 2006, he wrote in  The Washington Post that nuclear power could make a decisive and important contribution to saving the world from the serious threat of climate change.

Several hon. Members: rose

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Business of the House

Harriet Harman: With permission, I should like to make a statement about the business for next week.
	Monday 14 JanuarySecond Reading of the Education and Skills Bill.
	Tuesday 15 JanuaryMotion to approve a Ways and Means resolution on the Health and Social Care Bill, followed by motion to approve the payments into the Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund etc. Order 2007, followed by consideration in Committee of the European Communities (Finance) Bill, followed by remaining stages of the European Communities (Finance) Bill.
	Wednesday 16 JanuaryOpposition Day [6th Allotted Day]. There will be a debate entitled Pensioner Poverty, followed by a debate entitled Human Trafficking. Both debates will arise on an Opposition motion.
	Thursday 17 JanuaryTopical debate. Subject to be announced, followed by remaining stages of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Supplementary Provisions) Bill.
	Friday 18 JanuaryThe House will not be sitting.
	The provisional business for the week commencing 21 January will include:
	Monday 21 JanuarySecond Reading of the European Union (Amendment) Bill.
	Tuesday 22 JanuarySecond Reading of the Energy Bill.
	Wednesday 23 JanuaryOpposition Day [7th Allotted Day] (First Part). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced, followed by remaining stages of the Student Loans Bill.
	Thursday 24 JanuaryTopical debate, subject to be announced, followed by motions relating to Senior Salaries Review Body report on parliamentary pay, pensions and allowances.
	Friday 25 JanuaryPrivate Members' Bills.
	Next Wednesday, 16 January, the Government will publish the report of the Senior Salaries Review Body on parliamentary pay, pensions and allowances. At the same time, we will issue a written ministerial statement setting out the Government's response and table the relevant motions that will be debated by the House on the following Thursday, 24 January. Because of the difficult decisions that we have taken over the past year to stage the public sector pay awards, inflation has fallen, and that has allowed the Bank of England to keep interest rates down. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made clear, as Members of this House, we too[Hon. Members: This is a business statement.] As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made clear [ Interruption. ]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.

Harriet Harman: As Members of this House, we too are paid from the public purse, and it is right that we should be subject to the same disciplines on public sector pay as the rest of the public sector.

Simon Hughes: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I respect the fact that the Leader of the House is trying to be helpful, but this is not businessit is something elseand I ask you to guide her to make this statement at an appropriate time [ Interruption. ]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry, but I did not hear the conclusion of the hon. Gentleman's remarks because of the noise in the Chamber.

Simon Hughes: I invite you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to advise the Leader of the House on how she might help us by giving a statement in the right way and at the right time.

Harriet Harman: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Perhaps I can assist the House by explaining that I was saying that because I am about to make an announcement that is important to the House about how, in future, the pay and pensions of Members of this House will be set.

Michael Jack: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I am dealing with a point of order at the moment. In responding to that, I suggest to the Leader of the House that however helpful she is attempting to be in this matter, we are really dealing with the business of the House for next week rather than the detail that she was trying to be helpful in giving to the House at this stage.

Harriet Harman: I apologise if I have strayed out of order, but I was hoping to explain to the House that we will publish the SSRB report in advance of debating it so that Members will know that they will have adequate time to debate it, and so that they will know that this will possibly be the last time that they will have to go through that exercise because of the review that we intend to set up.

Theresa May: I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the forthcoming business. I also thank her for giving us an insight into the speech that she will give on 24 January in the debate on the SSRB report. I note that she was attempting to make a statement to the House on the Government's position before the Government have published that position and before Members have seen the SSRB report.
	On an entirely different subject, can the right hon. and learned Lady ensure that at around the time of St. David's day we have a debate on Welsh affairs?
	Yesterday, the Prime Minister was less than convincing when he tried to explain his ever-shifting policy on ID cards. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has written to him and has not received a reply. When will the Prime Minister make a clear statement to the House on his position on ID cards?
	Last year, the Government graciously accepted the Modernisation Committee's recommendation to have topical debates, yet only the first debate was genuinely topical. Since then, the right hon. and learned Lady has selected subjects to match the Government's news agenda. Will she now listen to the House and agree to a topical debate on Sir John Tooke's report on the shambolic handling of the recruitment system for junior doctors?
	Yesterday, despite the importance of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, we had only one day to debate its remaining stages. Many amendments were not debated. Can the right hon. and learned Lady make a statement on why the consideration of this important Bill was cut short?
	In November, in response to a question from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister promised to make available in the Library details of the preventing violent extremism programme. Despite repeated promises from Ministers, the information is still not there. When will it be placed in the Library?
	When the Prime Minister still claimed to be a change, he promised to
	entrust more power to Parliament.
	Since then, the Government have made no fewer than 28 policy announcements to the media before Parliament. Just this week, we have had press briefings on the NHS, nuclear power stations and deactivated firearms. When will the Leader of the House ensure that her ministerial colleagues, including the Prime Minister, do what he promised and put Parliament first? Every week, she tells us that she puts Parliament first, yet every week her colleagues treat Parliament with disdain.
	Another of the Prime Minister's changed policies was that there should be a deep clean of hospitals to fight superbugs. Yet now we know that only 50 out of 1,500 NHS hospitals have had a deep clean. The cost of the treatment is coming out of existing budgets, and the Health Secretary thinks that it is all a waste of time. When will the Health Secretary come to the House to make a statement on the Prime Minister's deep clean programme?
	Yet another of the Prime Minister's new policies was, notoriously, to promise British jobs for British workers. However, as we now know, 80 per cent. of new jobs go to migrant workers, the Government have lost a court ruling on foreign junior doctors, and the Government are weakening the resident labour market test. Will the beleaguered Work and Pensions Secretary take a break from the mess that he has created and make a statement to the House on the mess created by the Prime Minister?
	Do not those examples tell the sad truth about this Prime Minister? In the words of his own right hand man, he simply cannot claim to be the change, and is not that why his latest relaunch is doomed to fail?

Harriet Harman: The right hon. Lady raised the question of ID cards. The Prime Minister made the Government's position clear to the House yesterday, particularly in relation to the importance of biometric information on passports and on visas for foreign nationals, and to the fact that if there were any progress towards making that compulsory for British nationals, it would be in the light of experience that we would be bringing it back for a vote of this House. That is, and remains, the position on ID cards.
	We have had a number of topical debatesin Government time, as the House will rememberon matters that are important regionally, nationally or internationally, topical and of public interest. We have so far debated immigration, climate change, apprenticeships and financial problems for low-income families, and I invite all hon. Members to continue to propose subjects that they think are topical. One of the problems is that in order to give Members enough time to plan to be part of a topical debate, we give out information and make the decision earlier in the week. Because that process happens earlier in the week, the subject is inevitably less topical by the time we debate it later in the week.  [ Laughter. ] The reality is that there is a trade-off between giving people notice and topicality, but we have committed to review the situation, as we undertook to the House and the Modernisation Committee, and we will do so.
	The right hon. Lady mentioned the recruitment of junior doctors. She will know that we have recently had the publication of important work undertaken as part of the Tooke report.

Theresa May: I asked about that.

Harriet Harman: Indeed. I am dealing with it because the right hon. Lady asked about it. On that basis, we will go forward in consultation with the British Medical Association to improve the situation.
	The right hon. Lady mentioned the amount of time the House had to debate the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill on Report. We sought to make extra time available yesterday, but we acknowledge that it did not turn out to be enough. If we have the opportunity, consistent with ensuring the implementation of the Billparticularly with regard to the time-critical issue of prison officers' right to strikewe shall see whether we can find some extra time when the Bill returns to this House on consideration of Lords amendments. We all agree that the amount of time spent last night was unsatisfactory.
	The situation has raised a point that we will face again, and which business managers need to talk about: the amount of time available for this House to debate major Bills on Report. A number of major Bills have received a Second Reading or will receive it soon, and the question is whether enough time for Report is structured in, or whether we should seek to find more. If we do the latter, it will put pressure on the amount of time that the House has to debate non-legislative issues, or we will end up doing so at the expense of the amount of time hon. Members are able to spend in their constituencies. We all want enough time for scrutiny on Report, and we need to address this matter, especially in the light of the House's experience last night.
	The right hon. Lady talked about the Government's approach to tackling extremism and our action on that, and I shall look into the points that she made.
	Once again, the right hon. Lady made accusations and asserted that Ministers were making policy statements to the media that were rightly for this House. She gave a number of examples. I look into every single example, and I take the matter very seriously. I agree that it is important that Ministers are answerable to this House rather than the media. One example that she cited was the announcement today by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary about deactivated firearms. I looked into that matter before I came to the House today because there are always judgments to be made in such situations, and I wanted to know what the background to this one was and why the announcement was not the subject of an oral statement to the House.
	The issue in question is an intention that will be subject to consultation. It is a detailed and complex area, about which there will be consultation, and my right hon. Friend will come to the House with any proposals before we are asked to consider them in legislation. We have a business statement today and an important debate later on Army personnel; we also have a topical debate today, and we have had an important debate on energy. The question is whether it would have been right for her to come to the House to make a statement about the launch of a consultation about deactivated firearms. As far as I am concerned, she made a sensible judgment, which I am quite happy to defend to the House. I do not agree that we are not putting Parliament first.
	The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) talked about hospital-acquired infection. We are on target to progress with our deep cleans, and we do not think that they are a waste of time, as she alleged.

Theresa May: The Health Secretary said that they are.

Harriet Harman: He did not say that. We think that patients value them, and they are very important.
	The right hon. Lady also talked about migration. I remind her that we discuss that matter often in the House, and one of the key issues to keep under consideration is the Government's migration impact forum.
	I wish the right hon. Lady and the whole House a happy new year.

Frank Field: May I bring the Leader of the House back to MPs' pay? When I was first in the House, we worked ourselves up into a great state about our pay. The Government, led by Mrs. Thatcher, made it plain that what we wanted was against the level of settlement that they wished us to award ourselves. We passed our resolution, we incurred the displeasure of our constituents, and Mrs. T brought forward an order that fitted her wages policy. Before we debate our resolution on MPs' pay, may I ask the Leader of the House whether the same procedure, in which we pass a resolution that cannot become effective until the Government place an order for us to vote on, will operate? Before we voteand perhaps make fools of ourselveswill she tell us whether the Government will bring forward only an order that fits their wages policy for the public sector?

Harriet Harman: My right hon. Friend is right. The process, under the current procedures of this House, of setting, debating and voting on our pay, pensions and allowances is as he described it, based on his memories. That is why many Members say that they find it unacceptable, and we know that the public do not accept that MPs should decide their own pay and pensions by voting. Therefore, we intend to review the procedures for setting MPs' pay and pensions in the future, with a view to examining options that find objective criteria for pay determination within a framework that does not require Members to vote.

Several hon. Members: rose

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Clearly, many Members are hoping to raise questions on this statement. May I ask that there be a single supplementary question put briefly to the Minister and a short response.

Simon Hughes: Madam Deputy Speaker [ Laughter. ] You may not have been very helpful by making that point then, rather than later.  [ Interruption. ] I am standing my ground.
	We had an energy statement, which was important; it may or may not have been welcome. Following the questions put to the Prime Minister yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg), our new party leader, and my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Steve Webb), our new energy spokesman, on fuel costs and fuel poverty, will the Leader of House provide time in the near future for a debate on the effects of rising international fuel costs on people in this country and their fuel bills? Throughout the country, many people are finding the increased costs a difficult burden, and we would all benefit from a discussion about where we are, and where we can go to reduce the gap between rich and poor.
	We have just had the end of the consultation period on the Government's proposed local government settlement for the next three years. The right hon. and learned Lady will know, from our constituencies, that there is much unhappiness among all parties about the proposed tight settlement, and in relation to all councils and types of councils in England. Before we have the big bang debate later this month where we vote on whether we accept the settlement, could she find time for a debate that gives colleagues the chance to explore the impact of the proposals of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government for their type of council?
	On Members' pay, pensions and allowances, may I help the right hon. and learned Lady by suggesting that, next Wednesday, when the Government propose to publish the report from the independent body, she comes to the House after Prime Minister's questions and makes a statement, which we can explore, on the Government's position, so that the House is well informed in the week before we debate the issues? That is sensible and will facilitate the most managed method of dealing with the amendments that will inevitably be tabled.
	The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) made an early bid for a Welsh debate around St. David's day. We have had a terrible time in parts of the CommonwealthPakistan and Kenyaover Christmas and the new year. Commonwealth day is 10 March. May we have an annual Commonwealth day debate so that those of us who believe that the Commonwealth should and can be effective can try to persuade the Government to use their influence to ensure that democracy is supported more effectively throughout the Commonwealth?
	Lastly, following the big issue of yesterday, the Leader of the House has been helpful. We had a seven-and-a-half-hour Report stage on the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. More than four fifths of that timemore than six hourswas spent on Government new clauses, new schedules and amendments. There were 120 of them, all on matters that should not take time away from Government Back Benchers and Opposition Members. There were nine debates to be had on issues as important as blasphemy, prostitution, sex offences, pornography and personal data; yet we had only one out of nine. May I suggest that, in future, we negotiate the time for Report stage, which is the time for Back-Bench and Opposition contributions, and that if the Government want to do their own thing, they do it in extra time that they add to the agreed time? Only by doing that can we avoid the nonsense of the House of Commons considering one of the major Bills of the year but debating only what the Government wish to discuss, as happened yesterday.

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman reinforced the points about the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. He expressed what is largely a shared view. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) had already raised the points with me, so I was well aware of the concerns. In the interests of brevity, I shall not add to my comments in response to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, but we take the point, which was well made.
	On the energy statement and fuel costs, fuel poverty and fuel costs were raised many times in the topical debate before Christmas on people living on low incomes. However, the subject could be considered for a further topical debate and I am sure that it will be discussed on Second Reading of the Energy Bill next week.
	There are obviously further proposals to make on the local government settlement, but Communities and Local Government questions will take place on 15 January, which is next week. The hon. Gentleman is right that it has been a tight settlement. We must be careful with the public finances, but there has been a real-terms increase, which has been important year on year in areas such as my constituency and his in the London borough of Southwark. There has been a real-terms increase, despite the growing demand and the fact that we would all like more.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether, when we publish the SSRB report on 16 January, which is next Wednesday, and the written ministerial statement which sets out our position, and table our resolutions, we should make an oral statement. We are trying to make the written ministerial statement, which will be the Government's response to the SSRB report on MPs' pay, as full and as explanatory as possible so that we not only table the resolutions and enable hon. Members to examine them straight away and consider their amendments, but ensure that they have the Government's argument, set out as fully as possible, in an inevitably lengthy written ministerial statement. That will give hon. Members quite enough material to work out whetherand if so, howthey want to amend the resolutions. They will have more than a full week before the debate on 24 January. A written but full ministerial statement is the right approach.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned St. David's day, which is not for two months. The debate does not always take place on the day, but we always have a debate for Wales within 12 calendar months. He mentioned Commonwealth affairs. The Foreign Secretary recently made a statement to the House on Pakistan and Kenya. I will bear the hon. Gentleman's point in mind, bring it to the attention of the Foreign Secretary and ask my right hon. Friend to come to the House if there are further points that he needs to make about the Commonwealth.

Ann Cryer: Would it be possible to have a debate next week on the total lack of democratic accountability of the housing trusts that took over our council housing following various stock transfers? I have realised in the past few days that they are outside the remit of the freedom of information legislation, which makes matters even worse.

Harriet Harman: I am well aware of my hon. Friend's point and I know she wants to ensure that her constituents have not only high quality housing but some measure of redress if that is not the case, and that there is proper accountability. The Government are considering that important issue and we hope that there will be an opportunity in the next Session to introduce a housing Bill, which deals not with the supply sidethe subject of the current measurebut issues such as the rights of tenants. I know that my hon. Friend will play a major part in contributing to policy development on the matter.

George Young: Further to the questions about next Wednesday's business, what conceivable reason can there be for the Government's not placing in the Library today a copy of the SSRB report, which they have had since July, about which the Leader of the House sought to make a statement today, and which is widely available in the media?

Harriet Harman: The SSRB report is not yet printed. [Hon. Members: July!] We need to be sure that the leaders of Opposition parties have sufficient time to read the report before its publication.  [Interruption.] Just bear with me.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.

Harriet Harman: We need to be sure that leaders of Opposition parties have enough time to consider the report so that they can make their responses to the Government before we publish our response. [Hon. Members: Why?] It is also crucial that Back Benchers have sufficient time to examine the resolutions, consider the amendments that they might want to make and consider the full report.

Theresa May: The Leader of the Opposition has not received a copy.

Harriet Harman: The right hon. Lady claims from a sedentary position that leaders of the Opposition have not had a copy of the report. That concerns me.  [Interruption.] Let me just say that a copy of the report was given to her party leader on Monday.

Simon Hughes: We have received our copy.

Harriet Harman: I am reassured that the leader of the Liberal Democrats has received his copy. That leads me to believe that the Leader of the Opposition has not told the shadow Leader of the House that he has got a copy or what is in it.

Hon. Members: So it must have been printed.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.

Chris Mullin: How have we once again got ourselves into a position whereby we are invited to vote on our remuneration, given that we have been assured on several occasions during the 20 or so years that I have been in this place that it would not happen again? If we are to set up a review, can we ensure that it does not include too many complex criteria? Surely the solution is to link our remuneration to the fortunes of preferably the humblest of our constituents and leave it that way for eternity.

Harriet Harman: If we had acted on my hon. Friend's suggestion a number of years ago, we would not be in the position that we are in now. He tabled a motion that we should not set our own pay and that it should be indexed. I have announced to the House that we are now acting in the spirit of his proposals, albeit some years on.

John Bercow: Further to the earlier exchanges on the subject, can we please have a debate on the Floor of the House next week on the Government's approach to the programming of the Report stage of each and every Bill, in the course of which it would be possible, among other ideas, to consider the merits of the imposition of time limits on Back-Bench speeches?

Harriet Harman: I think that this issue needs further consideration, not just in the debate about programme motions, but by taking it in the round and looking ahead. That involves both consultation with the usual channels and the business managers reflecting on it. I very much take the hon. Gentleman's point.

Anne Moffat: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware of this morning's report about British troops serving in Afghanistan being given blood supplied by the Americans that had not been properly screened? Those troops are now going through the horror of waiting to see whether they have HIV, hepatitis B or other sexually transmitted diseases. Given that our fine soldiers are out there doing what they are doing, they should not be subjected to that. Can we have a statement as soon as possible?

Harriet Harman: I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. She is right to want to ensure that our troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq receive the highest possible standard of medical support and health care. The issue that she raises is one that she or other hon. Members might have the opportunity to raise in this afternoon's debate on armed services personnel.

Maria Miller: Can the Leader of the House make time for an urgent debate on the Select Committee on Health report that was published today? The report highlights the vital job that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence does in difficult circumstances, but identifies problems that need to be resolved. I am concerned in particular about the problem that some primary care trusts have in implementing NICE guidelines on IVF treatment. Can she arrange for a debate in Government time?

Harriet Harman: The Government are of course considering their position on the Health Committee's important report. We, too, share its view of the good work that NICE does. If the hon. Lady wants to make points about the report in advance of the Government's response, she will have an opportunity to do so in another of the much-maligned topical debates, which will take place in a few minutes.

Brian Iddon: Yesterday, without any discussion on the Floor of the House, we sent a Bill down to the other place that contained clause 105, which will result in the jailing of quite a number of women engaged in prostitution and criminalise thousands of them if it is eventually enacted. I found that lack of discussion terribly frustrating. There was also an important amendment on, effectively, zero tolerance that needed discussing.
	Ministers have gone to Sweden and Amsterdam today to study prostitution and, yesterday, the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson) announced that there would be a Bill in the fourth Session of this Parliament on prostitution. May I therefore suggest two alternatives to my right hon. and learned Friend? We could either have a topical debate next week on prostitution, so that we can give guidance to the other place on the feelings of elected Members of this House, or we could take those clauses out of the Bill entirely and include them in the Bill to be introduced in the fourth Session of Parliament.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes an important and constructive point, which I shall certainly reflect on. As he said, the Home Secretary has announced a six-month review period on the law relating to prostitution. As my hon. Friend also said, the issue will be debated in the other place, and I will also look at whether there will be an opportunity for a topical debate to consider it.

Richard Younger-Ross: Will there be time for a debate on disabled people's access to public transport? In particular, perhaps the relevant Minister could explain in that debate why there will be no companion passes to help disabled people travel under the concessionary bus pass scheme.

Harriet Harman: We have oral questions to the Secretary of State for Transport a week on Tuesday. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could take the opportunity to ask her then.

Jeremy Corbyn: I hope that the Leader of the House has acknowledged the huge concerns about yesterday's performance in the Report stage of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. However, I am unclear about what the proposals are to ensure that that simply does not happen again. We increased the size of a Bill by roughly a third and denied the House a debate on major issues, as many hon. Members have acknowledged. Can we have an assurance that that will simply never happen again and that there will be sufficient time for a proper debate on Report? Can we also have an assurance that the points that the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) made will be taken on board, namely that the time when we legitimately question the report from the relevant Committeethat is what it is supposed to beshould be separated and that if the Government wish to introduce new clauses on such major issues as prison officers' right to strike, that should be done in Government time, rather than taking away from our opportunity legitimately to question the legislation?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes the point well. He recognises that there will always be a need to add to Bills when time-critical issues arise, as they did with the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill and the question of prison officers' right to strike. However, we want to ensure that Government amendments are added in such a way that they are sufficiently debated and scrutinised in the Chamber, that that does not squeeze out the opportunity of Back Benchers to table amendments to the Bill that are in order and that they, too, are properly debated. I take his point.

Andrew MacKay: Normally when a Prime Minister answers repeatedly and woodenly, This is Government policy, most of us smell a dither and a U-turn coming, so can we have a guarantee from the Leader of the House that when the identity card scheme finally comes to an end, there will be a quick statement at the Dispatch Box from the Prime Minister and not from the Home Secretary?

Harriet Harman: Our position on identity cards is absolutely clear. We are pressing on. When it comes to dithering and U-turning, plenty of us are greatly confused by the Conservative party's position on ID cards.

Michael Connarty: Can the Leader of the House organise for the Department for Work and Pensions to have a debate so as to explain to the House the regulations or other arrangements that the new Child Support Agency will operate under? In 1998, I secured an interim assessment on behalf of a resident parent from, basically, a reluctant payer who would not return the inquiry form. The new enforcement team decided in October last year that he owed 46,000 to his children, but that could not be recovered, because some of it cannot be recovered from before 2000. The team has now written to say that because the inquiry form was returned unopened, it has decided to reduce his liability to nil. Is the CSA really saying that anybody who does not want to pay should just stick the form back in the post with Gone away on it?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes an important point. The biggest problem in child support is fathers who do not want to discharge their responsibilities to their children and who instead want the taxpayer to support them. That creates challenges. He makes an important point that needs to be addressed, so I shall bring it to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and ask him to liaise with my hon. Friend to discuss it.

Crispin Blunt: Can we have a debate on the Prime Minister and his Government's attitude to Parliament? Will the Leader of the House ensure that the Prime Minister opens that debate, so that he has an opportunity to explain what has changed since the fine words in his statement to the House on 3 July and, in particular, to say why, less than one hour after answering Prime Minister's questions yesterday, he was not here to vote for the quite disgraceful programme motion put before the House? The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson), said at the Dispatch Box that he would probably not be voting for it unless he had to make the case for it.
	Can the right hon. and learned Lady also explain why, in referring to what happened yesterday, she said, As it turns out, as though it was a surprise? If the Government continue to treat Parliament as though we are that stupid, she cannot be surprised at the reception that she has received this afternoon.

Harriet Harman: As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made a statement in July about the governance of Britain and the importance of Parliament within it. Nothing has changed since then.

David Chaytor: Can the Leader of the House find time for a debate on social mobilitya subject that is permanently topical and of growing interest to all parties. Given the Opposition parties' hostility to the Government's admirable policy, announced this week, of shifting the Higher Education Funding Council budget to give an advantage to those who have never been to university, given the Opposition's policy of hostility to extending the participation age to 18 and given the continuing hostility to the Government's policies of fair admissions in schools and universities, would not a debate on social mobility enable us to identify not only the factors holding it back, but the most effective policies for improving it?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend will knowhe shares the Government's total commitment to tackling poverty and promoting social mobilitythat all the policy issues, Government programmes and legislation that he has identified are directed towards that end. The Government's commitment is fundamental. I know that all the issues he raised are explicitly included in social mobility, but I will look to see whether a further opportunity to debate it, perhaps in a topical debate, might be possible.

Justine Greening: May I suggest a topical debate on the dangerous shambles of the consultation on the proposed expansion of Heathrow airport? The Secretary of State for Transport never appeared before the House to be held to account and it now turns out that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was never involved in the environmental modelling work on the Heathrow expansion. The proposal will affect millions of people and it concerns the environment, the economy and climate change. It is also controversial, so if that is not topical enough for a topical debate, what is?

Harriet Harman: I did tell the House, including the hon. Lady, that I considered Heathrow expansion as a subject for a topical debate before Christmas. I accept that many Members are concerned to debate the issues surrounding expansion. I did not pick it in the end because, after the consultation document was issued but before the end of the consultation period next month, those issues were discussed in a Westminster Hall debate. If the hon. Lady wants to explain why, notwithstanding that debate, Heathrow expansion remains a good subject for a topical debate, she can talk to me about it or drop me an e-mail.

Mark Hunter: I am aware that the House will debate preventive health services for a full 90 minutes later this afternoon, but I ask the Leader of the House to find time for a specific debate on the future of NHS dentistry. Does she agree that doing so is even more important in view of the revelations in  The Independent today that show that health care in this country is now the most expensive in Europe?

Harriet Harman: There will, as the hon. Gentleman says, be an opportunity to raise the ever-topical subject of NHS dentistry in this afternoon's debate, but let me remind the House that more people have NHS dentistry now than at any previous time. We want to increase still further the number of people who have an NHS dentist, but it is more than ever before. In addition, we are increasing the number of dentistry students going through our high-quality dentistry schools.

Michael Jack: Pursuant to the earlier remarks of the Leader of the House about the report of the Senior Salaries Review Body, will she explain in her inquiry mode whether she looked into how, earlier this year and before any Member of Parliament saw a copy of the report, so much of the information was made available to Sunday newspapers and other broadcast media? If the report has not yet been printed, how has the chairman of the parliamentary pensions system been able to get a copy of it?

Harriet Harman: It is custom and practice for Leaders of the Opposition and chairs of the trustees of parliamentary pensions to receive a draft copy before it goes to the printers. That has, indeed, occurred on this occasion. As to the various speculations in the newspapers about the SSRB report, we will have to wait until it is published to establish whether the leaks were accurate.
	On public sector pay policy, it is not jumping the gun in respect of the SSRB report for the Prime Minister to point outand for the Government to strongly take the viewthat we are paid out of the public purse. That being the case, we should expect to have the same public sector pay discipline applied to us as has been applied to the rest of the public sector as we take the difficult decision to ensure that pay is staged so that inflation stays down and interest rates remain low in order for the economy to remain strong.

Christopher Chope: Will it be possible to include in the resolutions on the SSRB report a call for Parliament to review the issue of the communications allowance? It is widely rumoured that the SSRB report is highly critical of the Government's communications allowance, whereby 10,000 goes to every Labour MP in a hard-pressed constituency for propaganda purposes

Chris Bryant: Do you use it?

Christopher Chope: I do not use it at all. We need to ensure that a proposal to remove the communications allowance, thereby saving taxpayers a lot of money, is put fairly and squarely before the House for resolution.

Harriet Harman: I just want to correct the misapprehension that the communications allowance is available only to Labour Members. It is available to all MPs who are concerned to communicate with their constituents. I believe that it is extremely important for MPs to be able to communicate to their constituents the important work they do in the House in their constituents' interests. I can tell the hon. Gentleman and the House that 547 Members have claimed the communications allowance. As I say, it is certainly not just for Labour MPs. When the allowance was set up, it was agreed that its operation should be subject to review by the House authorities. That review is under way. As to what changes to the allowance, if any, are proposed by the SSRB, the hon. Gentleman will be able to find out next Wednesday.

John Penrose: May I press the Leader of the House on her earlier responses to questions about ID cards? In her reply to the shadow Leader of the House, she used the example of including biometric data on passports, which is clearly a narrower and more voluntary system in comparison with the Government's earlier statements on having a mandatory and national ID cards scheme. What we want to find out and what the Leader of the House was subsequently asked is whether the Government remain committed to such a scheme and whether the Prime Minister will make a statement on whether the Government plan to introduce moves in that direction.

Harriet Harman: I think the Prime Minister commented on that yesterday in response to a question in Prime Minister's questions. I have repeated what he said and I do not think that I can add anything further to it.

David Evennett: The Leader of the House says that she is looking into the possibility of having debates on Wales and on the Commonwealth. May I urge her to think also about having a debate on London issues? We used to have an annual debate on London, which allowed Members with London constituencies and others to raise all sorts of general issues about London. Will she therefore think about adding such a debate to her list for consideration?

Harriet Harman: Yes, I will.

Mark Harper: May I take the Leader of the House back to a point about statements raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May)? Is it not the case that the Prime Minister is the worst offender with his announcement on NHS screening and his confirmation of the Cabinet's decision on nuclear power? Also, we all have a fair idea about where the leaks on the SSRB are coming from. The Leader of the House often refers to herself as the House's policeman, but is it not the case that the Prime Minister has effectively taken away and broken her truncheon, leaving her powerless?

Harriet Harman: The Prime Minister has made more oral statements to the House than I can recall ever happening before. As I have said, there is always a balance to be struck as to whether issues should be announced via oral questions, a written ministerial statement, an oral statement or whatever. I sense a certain disbelief at my statements on this matter, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that I take it very seriously. I cross-examine my colleagues about why they have done things in a particular way and I would not defend them if I thought that they had treated the House with disrespect. It is not my job to preside over Ministers not taking this House seriously.

Paul Goodman: Further to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) about the placing of documents relating to the Prime Minister's preventing violent extremism programme in the Library, the Leader of the House should know that the Prime Minister made a commitment to put the relevant documents in the Library as long ago as 14 November, and on 21 November the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government wrote to me saying that they would be put in the Library shortly. However, the Secretary of State's office has now told my office that there is no timetable for their delivery. Although the programme is important and worth while, Members will rightly wish to scrutinise the details of where the money is going. Will the Leader of the House please ensure that the problem is cleared up as a matter of urgency?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman can ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government about that next Tuesday, but he has made a serious point. I will look into it, and ensure that the Secretary of State writes to him and to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) before next Tuesday.

Mark Pritchard: Notwithstanding the debate on the armed forces that will take place later today, may we have a separate urgent debate on the funding of the excellent armed forces charity Combat Stress? Given that an increasing number of armed forces personnel are suffering from post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic stress disorder, are the Government confident that the current level of funding is adequate for the needs that it must serve?

Harriet Harman: I will bring the hon. Gentleman's question to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, but he has raised two issues: the amount that is spent on defence, and how it is allocated. It is of the highest priority that those who put their lives on the line should have the best possible support service, a point made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Anne Moffat). As the hon. Gentleman suggested, he will be able to raise that later today in the armed forces debate. As for the overall amount spent on defence, we spend more in real terms than any other country in the world except the United States. We have a very good record in that respect.

Philip Davies: It really is not good enough for the Leader of the House to tell Members to make suggestions for topical debates. Does she not think it might be noticed that every time the Prime Minister makes an announcement about something on a Monday, it miraculously becomes the subject of a topical debate on the following Thursday? During the debate on apprenticeships, the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), said that
	the debate is topical given that the Prime Minister has made announcements on apprenticeships in the past few days.[ Official Report, 29 November 2007; Vol. 470, c. 468.]
	Will the Leader of the House guarantee that from next week onwards, she will stop this farce of arranging a topical debate on whatever the Prime Minister mentions on a Monday?

Harriet Harman: I think that if the Prime Minister has made a statement on something that is of great concern and importance to the country and is being debated outside the House of Commons, the fact that he has taken an initiative on it should not bar it from being the subject of debate in the House. There is no scientific or correct way of choosing subjects for topical debates, which is why it is right for us to review the issue in the spring.

Peter Bone: May we have a statement from the Prime Minister next week on who would control the Government and our nuclear deterrent if the Prime Minister were indisposed because of an accident, illness or terrorist activity? Would it be the Leader of the House, the Cabinet Secretary, the defence chiefs, or perhaps David Beckham?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman has the opportunity to question the Prime Minister every Wednesday.

Philip Hollobone: May we have a debate in Government time entitled Ludicrous application of EU regulations? It would allow us to highlight the fact that over the past five years some 22 million has been given to former United Kingdom residents living in other European countries in the form of the winter fuel allowance, over 11 million of which has gone to former UK residents living in Spain. As pensioners struggle to pay their winter fuel bills in this country, is it not an outrage that so much public money is being spent on winter fuel allowances for people living in far warmer climes?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend the Minister for Energy tells me that there is some doubt about whether that is actually true.

Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman read it in the  Daily Mail.

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman is holding up the Order Paper rather than the  Daily Mail. I will look into the matter, and write to him.

Point of Order

Dominic Grieve: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Have you or Mr. Speaker received any notice from the Solicitor-General about a statement to the House on the collapse of the prosecution of Derek Pasquill, a Foreign Office official who was charged under the Official Secrets Act? The case collapsed on its first day because the Crown Prosecution Service indicated to the court that internal Foreign Office documents about the rendition information that Derek Pasquill had leaked to the press undermined the prosecution's case that the leaks were damaging. In addition, Madam Deputy Speaker

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman goes much further, perhaps I should say that this is not a matter for the occupant of the Chair. I understand its importance to the hon. Gentleman, but it is not the responsibility of the occupant of the Chair.

BILL PRESENTED

Energy

Mr. Secretary Hutton, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Jacqui Smith, Secretary Hilary Benn, Secretary Hazel Blears, Secretary John Denham and Malcolm Wicks, presented a Bill to make provision relating to gas importation and storage; to make provision in relation to electricity generated from renewable sources; to make provision about the decommissioning of energy installations and wells; to make provision about the management and disposal of waste produced during the operation of nuclear installations; to make provision relating to petroleum licences; to make provision about third party access to oil and gas infrastructure and modifications of pipelines; to make provision about reports relating to energy matters; to make provision relating to gas meters and electricity meters and provision relating to electricity safety; to make provision about the security of equipment, software and information relating to nuclear matters; and for connected purposes.: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Monday 14 January, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed. [Bill 53].

Topical Debate
	  
	Preventive Health Services

Dawn Primarolo: I beg to move,
	That this House has considered the matter of preventive health services.
	I welcome the opportunity to debate preventive medical services. We often debate issues involving the national health service and the treatment of ill health, and it is important for us to be able to focus also on the prevention of illness and the promotion of good health.
	The NHS has been engaged in preventive health services since its inception in 1948, and some preventive health services even predate its establishment. Wartime posters reminded mothers not to forget babies' cod liver oil and orange juice to prevent rickets and scurvy, and photographs of child health clinics with lines of children waiting to be vaccinated are emblematic of the early days of a service that is unique in its offer of health care free for all at the point of need, liberating all of us from fears of unaffordable treatment and untreatable illness: comprehensive health care, publicly funded by taxation.
	The announcement made on Monday by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister builds on that tradition by offering health checks where they will improve our ability to predict and prevent certain conditions in the people at greatest risk, including abdominal aortic aneurism in men over 65, which currently kills over 3,000 men a year. The screening programme is expected to halve that number. There will also be a mid-life test to identify vulnerability to vascular diseases that currently affect the lives of 6.2 million people, causing 200,000 deaths a year, and are responsible for a fifth of all hospital admissions. We announced last month that we would make available a vaccine to prevent the human papilloma virus, a major cause of cervical cancer. We have also made it clear that we support the implementation of further screening programmes when the National Screening Committee advises that the evidence base is sound.
	Some of the greatest improvements in the health of the population have been secured through preventive programmes. As a result of vaccination, once-dreaded diseases like diphtheria and polio are extremely rare in this country, and smallpox has been eradicated worldwide. Those campaigns have been so successful that we can easily become complacent about their worth. There used to be 500,000 cases of measles in Britain each year, but they can now be measured in hundreds. In other countries, however, measles remains a major childhood killer. We have seen how dependent we are on prevention to keep it at bay in this country when, as a result of vaccine scares, immunisation rates have fallen, leading to needless infections, complications and death.

Ann Cryer: On children and the prevention of illness, will my right hon. Friend comment on the need for advice to be given to some of our communities who practise first-cousin marriages? That has a detrimental effect on any ensuing children in terms of genetically transmitted disorders, which cannot be prevented by vaccination or immunisation.

Dawn Primarolo: My hon. Friend touches on another important dimension of having a national health service that treats ill health, advises and supports, and ensures that information and evidence is clearly provided to individuals. That is the national health service at its very broadest. My hon. Friend has raised an important issue, but, given the shortness of the debate, my response must be brief. Her comments reveal the broad role of the national health service and its professionals as stewards of good information and advice for all individuals in this country.

Philip Hollobone: That role is most applicable to tooth decay, which is almost entirely preventable. Does the right hon. Lady share my concern that there are not enough NHS dentists in constituencies such as Kettering? Does she also share my concern about the large number of young children who do not regularly visit an NHS dentist and receive the preventive health advice they need?

Dawn Primarolo: The hon. Gentleman is assiduous in his work in this Chamber, and I congratulate him on how he represents his constituents. I am sure he knows that we have some of the best standards of health care and healthy teeth in Europe, which is in large part due to fluoridation. The Government have invested a huge sum in dentistry, and the profession is expanding. Our training colleges are full, and our dentists are trained to the highest standards. I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman will continue to make sure that his constituents get the very best of what they need from dentistry.

Stewart Jackson: rose

Norman Lamb: rose

Dawn Primarolo: I shall give way to both hon. Gentlemen, and then I shall try to make some progress.

Stewart Jackson: I thank the Minister for her generosity in giving way. Among the most significant preventable conditions are the neural tube defects, hydrocephalus and spina bifida. Is the Minister able to advise the House when a decision will finally be taken on the fortification of foodstuffs with folic acid to prevent those distressing conditions?

Dawn Primarolo: The Department has revisited that issue and we are now running a large campaign based on guidance, leaflets and advice to parents on folic acid. Rather than use up time now, I am more than happy to write to the hon. Gentleman detailing those developments, because he is right that it is an important issue.

Norman Lamb: To follow up on the point about NHS dentistry, is the Minister not concerned that the evidence suggests that the system of units of dental activity does not in practice incentivise NHS dentists to offer preventive dental health care to their patients, and also that, almost universally, dentists say that the system must be reformed to incentivise that preventive work?

Dawn Primarolo: As I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, those are matters of great importance in the negotiations on the dentists' contract, the terms of which are being revisited quite a long time after their inception. Dentistry is moving away from extraction and fill to a policy of prevention of tooth decay, but his comments will be looked at closely.
	All the points that have already been raised make it clear that while we are, of course, concerned that we should have a national health service that is free at the point of need, treating people with illness, it also has a huge task to prevent ill health and to support individuals to have more control of their health in partnership with their clinicians. The NHS has discharged that role in the past 60 years, but it will need to do more in the coming years to empower people to monitor their own health. Screening programmes play a crucial role in that, such as the revolutionised child health care screening programmes, including hearing tests for new-born children, screening for sickle cell anaemia disorders, and the secured screening for cystic fibrosis, which will avoid lengthy diagnostic delays and minimise frequent hospital admissions for affected children. Those programmes play an important part in ensuring that people are able to stay healthy and fit and have a good quality of life, as well as treating them under the insurance policy that the NHS provides for all of usthe very best treatment when we need it.

Peter Bone: Will the Minister give way?

Dawn Primarolo: I will be happy to do so after I have made a little progress.
	Preventive health services are, of course, not the exclusive preserve of the NHS. An increasing range of commercial screening services are advertised, and there must be a degree of cautionthe health service certainly has thatin considering the use of such programmes. Any screening service has the potential to harm people as well as to benefit them, because finding illness in a whole population who have no signs of illness is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Often, unnecessary concerns are raised, which can result in treatments that carry a higher risk of complications. Therefore, preventive health services in the NHS are designed to deliver the greatest benefit to both the individual patient and the population as a whole, and to ensure that the outcome of a screening programme is net benefit and not net harm. Those important issues need to be borne in mind. I have a feeling that the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) wants to raise this matter, so I shall give way to him now.

Peter Bone: I entirely agree with the Minister about screening being a good idea, but the initial costs must be extraordinarily high. First, the screening must be done, and then the illnesses are found and must be treated. Any screening programme will represent a huge additional cost. Has that been budgeted for?

Dawn Primarolo: If any screening process is recommendedI will discuss this laterconsideration will be taken of the risks and the interventions and assessments, as I said a moment ago. Of course, such considerations are made all the time by the national health service in terms of screening and preventive interventions. That is why the outcome must be net benefit and not net harm. We must ensure that screening is effective and that it produces the greatest benefit for the health of the population. We must not conduct interventions that just reassure but actually offer no benefit.
	Improvements in public health have been achieved by what the Nuffield bioethics report refers to as quite interventionist public policies. As we move forward in the 21st century, we cannot rely solely on that approach. No one person or policy will solve the complex issues in our modern-day society, such as childhood obesity or the need to stop binge-drinking and inform people of the associated risks.

Philip Davies: Will the Minister give way?

Mark Pritchard: Will the Minister give way?

Dawn Primarolo: I am very short of time and I would like to make some progress. I am sure that the hon. Gentlemen will make their points incredibly powerfully in the debate.
	What I have said goes right to the heart of the issue: the balance that must be struck between state responsibility and individual choiceindividual empowerment and responsibilities and the provision of services. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, the future of the health service must be about building partnerships between patients and the NHS, and ensuring that patients are empowered to monitor their own health and to exercise real choice. Crucial factors in that approach will be advice on diet and physical activity. Policy on smoking cessation has been crucial in making serious qualitative strides on high quality interventions to improve the health of the nation.

Philip Davies: rose

Dawn Primarolo: Time is short and I have been very generous in giving way, so I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman will have to speak in the debate.
	Primary care has, of course, played a central role in the development and implementation of preventive health services, but the primary care team contains many different professions and expertise, all of which need to be utilised, from the house visitor to the practice nurse and pharmacist. In taking forward strategies to prevent ill health, the health service will need to rise to the challenge of ensuring not only the provision of a personalised service that supports the individual, but the appropriate use of all the skills that exist in our national health services.
	Services work best when they are based on evidence and on expert guidance on the benefits to individuals and the whole population. We are fortunate to be guided by the National Screening Committee and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work that those two committees, and others working in the field of preventive medicine in the NHS, have done.
	As the NHS moves towards its 60th birthday, we are seeking to place even greater emphasis on the importance of preventive health services, which save and improve lives. That will be a key feature of the NHS next stage review, which is being led by Lord Darzi and is expected to report in the summer. We have much to be proud of from the first 60 years, and we intend to ensure that the next 60 years of the NHS builds on prevention and need, and celebrates everyone's life and quality of life.

Mark Simmonds: No one in this House or this country would deny the importance or significance of preventive health care, nor would they criticise the Government for, at last, shining a light on public and preventive health care. Conservative Members recognise the benefit of prevention and earlier detection, diagnosis and treatment in improving the overall health and well-being of the population, particularly as preventive health services are key to combating health inequalities.
	Let us begin by discussing where we agree with the Prime Minister's statement on Monday. We agree with devolved decision making and with greater emphasis on prevention. We want greater accountability, a more patient-focused NHS and greater individual empowerment, and a larger involvement for the charitable, voluntary and private sectors. We also want extended diagnostics in surgeries and greater access to screening, which all have the potential to save many lives. I am sure that the Minister will acknowledge that Conservative Members have called for all that repeatedly. However, the message delivered by the Prime Minister on Monday is in stark and direct contradiction to this Government's track record. Over the past decade the NHS has been overseen by the Prime Minister, who has presided over a command-and-control, top-down, centralised and process-driven system, and certainly not over a patient-centred NHS based on outcomes.
	The key to preventive health care is public health. Under this Government, our public health service is fragmented and there are few clear lines of accountability. Primary care trusts have no incentive to pay for public health interventions that will be costly in the short term as a result of additional demand. Public health budgets have been raided to bail out deficit-ridden trusts, and it is clear that, especially in London, there is an inverse relationship between socio-economic deprivation and public health expenditure.

Howard Stoate: Before the hon. Gentleman extols the virtues of his party on public health and preventive medicine, perhaps he would like to reflect back to the 1990 general practitioners contract, which contained 27 targets for GPs to meet on so-called preventive medicine, not one of which was evidence based and all of which fell quickly into disrepute because they were completely ineffective.

Mark Simmonds: The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to learn that I do not share his analysis. Let us consider what has happened since 1997. Rates of obesity, sexually transmitted diseases and substance abuse are all increasing, and progress on reducing smoking has stalled. Levels of infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, are rising in the United Kingdom, and the UK has a higher prevalence of drug misuse than any other European country. That is not a record of which he should be proud.

Philip Davies: I think that we all agree about preventive health, but the thing about this debate that worries me is the talk that we sometimes hear from Labour Members about denying treatment to people who happen to smoke or who eat junk food and are overweight. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the next Conservative Government will not deny people any treatment that they need because of their lifestyle choices? If we went down those lines, anyone who got pregnant would not be able to have an abortion on the NHS, because that would have been preventable too.

Mark Simmonds: My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I can confirm from the Dispatch Box that that is not the policy of the party that I represent from the Front Bench, nor, to be fair, do I suspect it to be the policy of the Government.
	Urgent action must be taken to prevent a public health crisis. On Monday, the Prime Minister promised everyone in the country a check-up for heart disease, strokes, diabetes and kidney disease. Of course, it is right that such checks are available to those who need them, yet instead of this being the initiative-seizing new start for the Prime Minister, the proposals have been criticised by the very people who are charged with implementing them.
	Let us be clear that the Minister was right to mention and congratulate the National Screening Committee, but it has not recommended whole population screening, which was announced by the Government. Instead, it recommends a narrower programme of risk assessment that could include measurement of risk factors such as blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose, alongside assessment of the all-important family history. Will she detail the clinical evidence for such whole population screening, which could divert finite, financial resources away from deprived areas and ethnic communities, where it is vital to reduce health inequalities?

Tony Baldry: Before we get on to the detail, I think that my hon. Friend can help me with the mystery that all this involves. We are debating just one aspect of the speech that the Prime Minister gave on Monday, because the Government have chosen to select just one part of it. What confuses me about that speech is that it contained numerous messages about patient power, concern about a health service that was driven by the needs of providers rather than those of patients and the phrase empowering patients. That all sounds hollow in my constituency, where people see NHS services being closed down, taken away and reducedthey do not see how that reconciles with patient power. What does my hon. Friend understand the Prime Minister to mean when he talks about patient power? Does the fact that the only bit of the speech that the Government are focusing on today is a dissertation on preventive medicine mean that all the other things said by the Prime Minister were simply hot air?

Mark Simmonds: My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which touches on the issue that I was trying to emphasise at the beginning of my remarksone must look carefully at what this Government do, not what they say. Their record on the health service since they came to power in 1997 has been very much about central control and disempowering patients and those who use the NHS, rather than about empowering both individuals and groups. Conservatives want such empowerment to be a central part of the development of the NHS when we form the Government, as we hope to do after the next general election.
	I want to make some additional points about what the Prime Minister said on Monday. There is no timetable for delivery of the screening. He said that it would occur at some point between April 2008 and 2011, but could not say at what point in the spending round the money would become available.
	The House will also not be surprised to learn that some of the announcements made on Monday were not new. Conservatives have been calling for triple A screening for years, and the Government have promised to roll it out for at least a year. In the White Paper of January 2006, they recommended something called life check, which was supposed to include a mid-life health check, including checks on weight, blood pressure and cholesterol. That is remarkably similar to what was in Monday's announcements.
	Furthermore, no consultation on those proposals has taken place. Neither the National Screening Committee nor the British Medical Association were consulted on the screening plans. It is beyond belief that the Prime Minister did not consult the very groups set up to provide him with expert advice on screening, nor the doctors expected to implement those policies.

Stewart Jackson: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister has form in that area? Last September, he told the Labour party conference that every hospital in the country would be deep cleaned. Figures recently released show that a tiny minority of hospitals and trusts have been deep cleaned, and many have no plans for a deep clean in place with their strategic health authorities.

Mark Simmonds: My hon. Friend is right to make that point, although that is not the specific area of debate for today. He is right to re-emphasise the point that, with this Government, one has to look carefully at their actions, not at what they say.
	Not only have there been the criticisms that I have highlighted, but it is peculiar that the Prime Minister is announcing policy at the same time as a detailed policy review is being conducted by Lord Darzi. I suspect that it is because the Prime Minister is being reactive, rather that proactive.

Quentin Davies: The hon. Gentleman spoke with approval a moment ago about those who criticise whole population screening and prefer selective screening based on risk-factor selection. Does that mean that under a future Conservative Government, if people want to be screened but have not been selected by the bureaucracy on the basis of some risk factor, their only hope is to go to the private sector and pay?

Mark Simmonds: That is not exactly what I said. The health service needs to take into account the clinical evidence base that supports the recommendations from the professionals. The Government need to look carefully at what the National Screening Committee recommends, which is not whole population screening. I understand that the Department of Health is starting to resile from what the Prime Minister said on Monday. I shall set out what we intend to do later in my remarks.
	Not only have there been criticisms, but there are significant and glaring omissions. I just wish to give two brief, but representative, examples. First, despite what the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), said inaccurately on Newsnight earlier in the week, pharmacists were not mentioned at all in the Prime Minister's speech, despite their vital importance and the potentially significant contribution that they can make to preventive health care. The Government claimed that the new contract would lead to exactly these types of checks in the community, but only 1 per cent. of pharmacies have been commissioned by PCTs to do that screening.
	We also critically require primary prevention to improve nutrition. The estimated overall cost to the NHS of failing to treat under-nutrition is 7.3 billion per year, but measures to alleviate this burden were not announced in the Prime Minister's speech on preventive health care. Recent figures detail that the number of patients being admitted to hospital in an undernourished state has increased by a staggering 85 per cent. since 1997, to more than 130,000 last year. Failing to prevent under-nutrition in patients leads to longer hospital stays, delayed recovery, an increased risk of contracting health care-associated infections, and poor respiratory function. In some studies, undernourished patients are estimated to have a mortality rate up to eight times higher than well-nourished patients.
	The Opposition believe that policies on such important issues as preventive health must be carefully and fully considered and appropriately resourced. We have consulted widely and made a number of proposals in that vital area of health policy.
	We have pledged an independent ring-fenced budget for public health, allocated through a new public health structure, overseen by local directors of public health jointly appointed by PCTs and local authorities. We want to see a strengthened chief medical officer's department, made more independent of Ministers. We will use the public health budget to enhance significantly the impact of health awareness campaigns, both for primary prevention, to convey an understanding of the impact of lifestyle especially on cancer risk, and for secondary prevention, promoting awareness of symptoms and encouraging early presentation. We would make greater use of the skills and expertise of health care professionals, such as pharmacists, who are close to their communities and well placed to provide information about medical conditions, lifestyle choices and medicine management.
	Sadly, we have seen no such policy rigour from the Government, and the Prime Minister's recent announcements have left health care professionals and patients confused over exactly what services will be provided, where the resources are coming from, and when the checks will begin.
	I have a few brief questions for the Minister and I hope that she will respond when she winds up. Will the Minister confirm that it is the Government's intention to fund fully any future recommendation from the National Screening Committee? Where are the resources coming from to fund the triple A announcement, which was first made in June 2004? What is the difference between the life check announced in January 2006 and what the Prime Minister announced on Monday? The Prime Minister said that everyone had the right to these check-ups
	when you want and need them, and where you need them.
	Is it the Government's intention to apply that to screening and, if so, where is the clinical evidence and analysis of the importance of risk profiling? How can this be reconciled with the advice from the National Screening Committee, which does not recommend whole population screening? Could the Minister clarify whether the Prime Minister is really promising screening for everyone at any time?
	The NHS is one of the country's greatest assets, and the Conservative party's No. 1 priority. Under a future Conservative Government, the NHS will have a greater patient focus; it will be based on outcomes, not centrally driven targets; it will be properly resourced; it will be free at the point of delivery; and, most importantly, it will focus on the key to our long-term healthbetter public and better preventive health care.

Several hon. Members: rose

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind all hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a 10-minute limit on Back Bench speeches.

Sharon Hodgson: It is a pleasure to be able to speak in this debate on the subject of a more preventive health service. I apologise for my croaky voice, but I have a bit of a cold. Perhaps if I took more preventive health care decisions, I might not be suffering as I am today.  [ Laughter. ] The topic is a worthy one and, of course, we would not have been discussing it without the new time made available for topical debates, which I warmly welcome.
	I have lost track of the number of conversations I have had in my time as a Member of this House with health care professionals and constituents that have stressed the importance of taking a more preventive approach to health care in this country. I am sure that other hon. Members are no strangers to that topic either. The speech given by the Prime Minister earlier this week should be welcomed on both sides of the House as a step towards creating an NHS that is seen to be adapting to the new challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.
	There has been an increasing focus in recent years on the impact of our lifestyles on our health. Lifestyle choices and the plethora of products available to support them are no longer a niche conversation or a niche market. The continued emergence of research that identifies risk factors associated with different diseases cannot be ignored. That is why a new focus on preventive health care is so timely. We now have the information available to support health professionals in seeking both to educate and protect our constituents. I am sure that I will not be the first or last Member today to utter the words prevention is better than cure, so I will get that one out of the way.
	I would like to discuss briefly three aspects to the approach. It is necessary to raise the importance of both awareness and screening in increasing prevention of cancer and other killer diseases, and I would also like to ensure that Ministers are reminded of the continuing need to address health inequalities in the north-east. I would hope that long-term thinking and preventive health care will be able to make real inroads into health problems in Gateshead and Washington, and I will return to that issue.
	The recent cancer reform strategy made clear the need for greater attention to be paid to raising awareness of rarer cancer symptoms and also began to set out improvements in screening that will continue to save lives throughout the country. If we are to see more preventive health care, we need better education of symptom awareness. Ovarian cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women, but all too often symptoms go unnoticed by GPs and patients alike. England and the UK were recently revealed to have among the lowest ovarian cancer survival rates in Europe, with just over 30 per cent. of women surviving for five years. The figure has not changed significantly in more than 20 years. Most women75 per cent.are diagnosed once the cancer has spread significantly, making successful treatment difficult. If our rates could match the best in Europe, an extra 800 women a year would survive beyond five years.
	I welcome Professor Mike Richards's statement that ovarian cancer will be included in the early awareness initiative that was announced as part of the cancer reform strategy. I welcome the active steps that are already being taken on better prevention through symptom awareness. The ongoing TLC campaign that encourages woman to touch, look and check their breasts for any signs of change also does valuable work in raising awareness of the risks of breast cancer. It is vital that Ministers continue to work with campaigners such as Breakthrough Breast Cancer to achieve the results that we all wish to see.
	Alongside working to increase awareness, it is vital that access to screening continues to improve for those most at risk of developing cancers and other deadly diseases. I have been in touch with Cancer Research UK about that, because I know it takes screening seriously. The launch of the parliamentary phase of the Screening Matters campaign will be co-ordinated in partnership with other charities including Jo's Trust and the Breast Cancer Campaign. The message is incredibly simple: screening matters because it saves lives. Hon. Members will have an important role in spreading the word and I encourage them to attend the launch event, which will be held in the House during February.
	Breast cancer screening is estimated to save 1,400 lives a year. Bowel cancer screening for those at risk is also playing a role in detecting cancer early and increasing the chance of survival. The message that I continue to hear from organisations such as Bowel Cancer UK is that the steps being taken by the Government are hugely ambitious. Labour Members should share a sense of pride at having helped to support those changes.
	The Prime Minister's announcement of a new vascular screening programme has been warmly welcomed by many, including health charities such as HEART UK, the Primary Care Cardiovascular Society, the National Obesity Forum and the British Heart Foundation. However, we must ensure that that ambitious programme is properly supported. We need to stick to well-founded examples of best practice, such as those established for vascular screening. We will not succeed unless we have appropriate treatments and expertise available for those who are identified through screening as suffering from a potentially terminal illness.
	There is huge potential in the increased screening programme and it will make a real difference for many in my constituency. The introduction of the smoking ban, the success of the five a day campaign and improvements in the quality of school meals all add up to show the Government's strong and continuing commitment to public health in Britain. We now have more than 32,000 more doctors and 85,000 more nurses. Waiting times for operations are shorter than ever and screening projects are becoming more and more effective.
	I do not believe that we would have seen anything like the same degree of financial support or policy commitment under a Conservative Government. All the local authorities in Tyne and Wear are in the top two fifths of the most deprived areas of the UK. Gateshead and Sunderland, which cover my constituency, are both in the top fifth. I know from talking to staff at Gateshead Queen Elizabeth hospital and at Sunderland royal hospital that they are doing all they can to address the health inequalities that affect my constituency so badly.
	Those inequalities are prevalent despite the excellent care that my constituents receive at those hospitals and across the wider north-east from skilled and dedicated staff. In the Sunderland metropolitan area, life expectancy is 18 months below the national average. Death rates from smoking, heart disease, strokes and cancer are all above the national average. The mortality rate for cancer is 136 per 100,000 compared with a national average of 119. Almost a third of children are dependent on means-tested benefits. That can be compared with a wealthy London Borough such as Kensington and Chelsea, where the cancer mortality rate is only 81 per 100,000.
	In Gateshead, life expectancy is almost two years below the national average. Again, deaths from smoking, heart disease, strokes and cancer are all above the national average. In fact, mortality rates for heart disease and strokes are at 110 per 100,000 compared with a national average of 90. The statistics create a compelling argument that cannot be ignored. It is a common-sense recognition that the more we can prevent killer diseases through medical progress and lifestyle change, the more savings we can make on health budgets.
	Progress will be achieved only if primary care trusts and social care services work closely together to educate the public. Therefore, it is even more vital that we do not push the two services into a battle for funding so that gains for one only lead to losses for the other. That is why I am delighted about the recent provisional funding announcement, which will go some way to ending the problems that have been caused by the double damping of funding.
	In constituencies such as mine, health services need extra support to tackle ingrained public health problems. Many of us know the old sayings such as an apple a day and go to work on an egg, but in the current environment there is a risk that such simple messages can get lost in the myriad information and warnings about the impact of our chosen lifestyles.
	I hope that ministers will acknowledge the issues facing constituencies such as mine in the north-east and will endeavour to address them as a priority when moving towards more preventive health care.

Norman Lamb: It is pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Mrs. Hodgson). I immediately had a sense of affinity with her when she made her comments about her rough throat. I failed to take the preventive measure of a flu jab for the first time in 10 years, and the result was a miserable Christmas. I have a great deal of sympathy for her.
	The debate concerns an issue for which there is no doubt universal support. No one objects to or resists the idea of preventive health care. It is in every citizen's interest that the NHS should focus on that. It is also in the NHS's interest. As Derek Wanless said when he advised the Government on NHS funding, unless we help people to care better for themselves, we will bankrupt the NHS; it is simply unsustainable.
	The real debate is about whether the Government have delivered on preventive health measures and are likely to do so in future, as well as about the real meaning of the Prime Minister's speech on Monday. Like the Conservative spokesman, I was left with a degree of suspicion. It seems extraordinary that the announcement could have been made without discussion with the National Screening Committee or the involvement of clinicians or the British Medical Association. One is inevitably left with the sense that it is part of the big political battle over health and the Prime Minister's determination to recover lost ground on the health service.
	In a spirit of new year generosity, I will acknowledge that the Government have made some progress. For example, QOFthe quality and outcomes frameworkintroduced the idea of incentives to encourage primary care to engage in preventive measures. As the hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West said, the screening programmes for breast cancer and bowel cancer have made progress. That should be acknowledged. I absolutely support the introduction of ultrasound screening for triple A, or abdominal aortic aneurysm, provided that it happens and is properly funded. As we have heard, the announcement was originally made some time ago and we are still waiting.
	The decision on vaccinations against cervical cancer was also absolutely right, and it will save lives. The debate is now about whether the programme can and should be extended to cover older age groups within the licence. It is licensed for those up to the age of 26, and yet women in the older age bracket will not get vaccinations under the programme. Will the Minister undertake to look into that?
	The problem is that the rhetoric, overall, has not been matched by delivery. The biggest challenge is public health priorities in disadvantaged communitieslifestyle ill-health. The hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West was absolutely right to draw attention to the enormous health inequalities in this country, which are growing under the Government. The key issue is access to health services and reaching those hard-to-reach individuals who are not benefiting from the screening that has been introduced for others across the country.
	It is extraordinary that remuneration for GPs continues to discriminate against those who work in disadvantaged communities. The NHS Confederation has argued that the minimum income guarantee, which hits GP practices in disadvantaged communities, should be reformed, along with QOF. At the moment, QOF pays out less money to GPs in disadvantaged communities than it does to those in the leafy suburbs.
	Why are public health budgets cut whenever financial constraints are imposed? Why is it being proposed that work in London on HIV prevention for gay men should be cut by 36 per cent.? The common thread is that all the financial incentives for PCTs around the country under budget pressure are that they should put money towards meeting treatment targets, rather than into prevention. That problem will remain until those incentives are changed.
	My slot in the debate is very limited, so my final remarks have to do with preventing fractures. The national hip fracture database is a fantastic initiative to drive up standards and quality of care, and it focuses on preventing fractures. In the UK, 310,000 patients suffer fractures every year. The treatment of osteoporosis is key: 3 million people suffer from the disease, and the social and hospital care costs of their fractures amount to some 2 billion a year. Proper treatment for all osteoporosis suffers could cut the fracture rate by 50 per cent., yet the Government have excluded osteoporosis treatment from the QOF arrangements in the negotiations that are under way. That is a big mistake. Osteoporosis was not mentioned in Monday's announcement, and the Government should think again.

Howard Stoate: This year, the NHS will have been in existence for 60 years. When I was preparing for this debate, the sobering thought occurred to me that I have been qualified for slightly more than half that time. I want to begin by paying a huge tribute to the 1.3 million people who work in the NHS, as they have created what I still believe is one of the best health services in the world, if not the very best. I hasten to add that that is not in any very large measure due to my efforts, although I hope that I have contributed at least a small amount.
	There have been huge changes in the NHS since its inception, but a big disappointment has been that it has been unable to become a prevention service. Over the decades it has concentrated on being a treatment service, and my memories of my early days in the NHS make it easy to see why.
	When I started in general practice, five of us shared a small Victorian building. Patients had to climb a steep flight of stone steps to the front door, which meant that disabled people simply could not get in. We had no practice nurse, no computers and no proper medical records apart from the ordinary GP notes that, of course, could not be searched. That meant that it was almost impossible to set up anything approaching a screening or properly preventive service.
	We did what we could, of course. We immunised children and, when people came to see us, we took the opportunity to check their blood pressure and so on. However, we could not systematically screen patients, as we had no way to recall them or to call them in for checks. We certainly had no system to follow up everyone whose cholesterol was outside the normal range or whose blood pressure was over the top.
	Things have changed radically. Now, I work in a large, purpose-built surgery with 11 consulting rooms, eight partners and three full-time nurses. We have a professional team of managers to help us make sure that people are called in when necessary, and an enormous array of ancillary staff and health professionals are attached to the practice who offer a range of services that was simply unknown when I began as a GP. That has made a massive difference.
	On top of that, we have access to community services such as heart failure clinics and nurses dedicated to looking after people with Parkinson's disease or continence problemsthe list is very long. Modern computerised systems and almost paper-free records mean that in a few seconds I can find out exactly how many people's cholesterol is above the recommended level, or how many people with diabetes have not had regular check-ups or the retinal screening that they need. The fact that GPs can do all that almost instantaneously means that we can contact people, call them in, remind them when they are due for health checks, and so on. That has made a massive difference to how people are treated, and makes screening and prevention a real possibility.

Norman Lamb: I recognise the changes for the better that have been introduced, but the hon. Gentleman will have seen the impact on public health budgets around the country and in his area of London. Does he accept that the combination of treatment targets that put intense pressure on PCTs and payment by results has ensured that the incentive is to link payments to treatment rather then prevention?

Howard Stoate: I listened to the hon. Gentleman very carefully, but I do not recognise the problem that he describes. The QOF system set up under the new GP contract is almost completely evidence based. It is reviewed every year by the British Medical Association and the Department of Heath to ensure that it reflects best practice. Everything that GPs do has a dedicated outcome and a proper scientific base, which means that we know that what we are doing is worthwhile medicine and that it genuinely improves patient care.
	A few years ago, if a patient with suspected cancer came to see me I had to beg, borrow and steal an urgent out-patient appointment. If I was very lucky, and ready to call on the old boys' network, I might have been able to get one in a month or two. Now, I can guarantee such a patient an appointment with a cancer specialist within two weeks, and probably a lot sooner.
	We are now able to do things that were simply not possible in the old days. I can get open-access MRI scans and endoscopies, and I can investigate people far more rigorously inside the practice. That means that I am more likely to reach the correct diagnosis far sooner than would have been possible in the days when I had to wait for a consultant to confirm my fears.

Quentin Davies: My hon. Friend is making an extremely good and effective speech, but he just mentioned that he can now get patients presenting with cancer or other serious symptoms a consultant-level appointment referral within two weeks. That is a fantastic improvement on the two or three months that it used to take. Does he agree that that would not have been conceivable without targets? Has he noticed that the Conservative party proposes to abolish the targets on which that performance is based?

Howard Stoate: My hon. Friend makes a valuable point, and it is deeply regrettable that the Opposition seem hell bent on getting rid of targets. He is right to say that targets have driven up standards in the NHS hugely and that they have massively improved patient outcomes. We are now able to measure the number of people with particular conditions. We can check that they are properly managed, recall those who need further treatment, and ensure that they are on the best drugs available. That is the way to go.
	Although the history of prevention has not been very good, I have tried to make it clear that we are now at the point when we can take advantage of modern techniques to ensure that preventive medicine is used properly, but there are risks. As I noted in an earlier intervention, the previous Government appeared to want to improve patient outcomes and health but did not ensure that treatment was evidence based. The checks that doctors were required to carry out under the 1990 GP contract quickly led to disillusionment, because they were not based on anything that could be recognised as good patient care.
	The National Screening Committee has made it clear that it will recommend treatments to the Government only when there is evidence to prove their effectiveness. That is very important. There used to be the so-called stands to reason test among GPs: doctors would say that it stood to reason that measuring a person's blood pressure or cholesterol would do them some good. Yet that is not so, because there must be evidence that proves that interventions in those circumstance will change outcomes.
	Getting such evidence is difficult, and that is why it has taken longer than I had hoped for the National Screening Committee to recommend triple A screening. It has now made that recommendation, because the evidence that that screening is worth spending on is now sufficiently solid. It has been shown that triple A screening can save around 1,600 lives a year among those men over 60 who are most prone to the diseases that it can detect.
	I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Men's Health Forum. Along with Ministers and the all-party group on men's health, I have worked very closely with that organisation to ensure that interventions shown to be worth while and to provide value for money are adopted. As a result of all our hard work, the Prime Minister has announced that the programme that we have been advocating would be taken up. That is a great improvement over relying on interventions that might not have been so effective and might have wasted public money.
	The NHS has a rosy future. New money is still being put in every year, and I am also pleased that the Prime Minister is not afraid to promise continuing reform. Unless we continue to reform the NHS and to reconfigure services, we will have no way to ensure that patients get access to the most modern treatments, in the most suitable setting and with the most appropriate staff mix. It is important that we continue our programme of reform, to ensure that all patients have access to what they need.
	Choice is also topical. In his latest speech, the Prime Minister said to us that he wants to make sure that patients are at the centre of choice. Patients now have a choice of where they are treated, to a large extent when they are treated, and to an increasing extent by whom they are treated. That is important, because if we are to expect people to take more responsibility for themselves and for their own health care, they have to have access to the information they need, and they have to feel that they, not the Government and not necessarily their doctor, are in charge of their condition. It is their condition, their body and their future; they must be central to making decisions on what happens. I believe that if we give patients that right, they will rise to the occasion and take the responsibility to improve their own health outcome, which will be important to improving their long-term condition.
	I have mentioned how welcome it is that the Government are to introduce triple A screening. Some of the other measures the Prime Minister mentioned, such as screening at-risk groups for heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes, are also important.

Norman Lamb: Does the hon. Gentleman support the introduction of osteoporosis screening into the quality and outcomes framework? The evidence from clinicians appears to be that that would make a substantial difference in preventing fractures.

Howard Stoate: The hon. Gentleman has just beaten me to itI was about to mention osteoporosis and pay tribute to him for his comments in that respect. I entirely agree with him that osteoporosis is a worthwhile subject, certainly in terms of secondary screening and prevention. Someone who has had a low-impact fractureone resulting from a fall rather than a strike by a moving objectshould be screened for osteoporosis. People who fracture a joint or a bone in a fall should have a DEXA scan to ensure that they do not have osteoporosis; and if they do have the condition, they can be given appropriate treatment.
	Like the hon. Gentleman, I have been calling for osteoporosis to be introduced into the QOF. In fact, only a few weeks ago, I spoke to Laurence Buckman of the BMA and tried to persuade him to ensure that it was put on the agenda for future QOF discussions. We will have to watch this space. Again, however, we will have to ensure that the evidence is there before we rush to decide whether it is a good idea or a bad one. I think that it is a good idea, and I hope that the screening committee will come to share that view in due course.

Norman Lamb: It appears from the discussion between the BMA and the Government that the Government have given priority to introducing incentives to extend hours rather than to measures such as osteoporosis screening. Does the hon. Gentleman share the concern of many people that to focus on extended hours to the exclusion of such preventive measures is to miss a massive opportunity?

Howard Stoate: I do not think that the two aims are mutually exclusive. One of the points I wanted to discuss is capacity in the NHS. The Government's current policy, which I entirely support, is to ensure that people are treated in the most appropriate place, preferably near their own home, if that is possible. That entails moving more facilities into the community. As I said, that is already happening in my area. More clinics and services are available within communities; people have more things done in the local surgery and they can attend clinics in their local town. However, there is a big issue of capacity in the NHS. We have to decide how the extra work can best and most appropriately be distributed to the health professionals we have available. In general practice, as I said, I now have three full-time nurses, whereas previously I had none. However, we need more: we need health care assistants, so that the nurses can pass on some of the more routine work to them and get on with the clinical management of patients.
	The biggest untapped area of capacity in the NHS is pharmacy. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State mentioned pharmacy in her opening speech. We need to maximise the use of all parts of the NHS, and pharmacy is an important part. Almost every community has a pharmacy at its centre; almost all high streets have a pharmacy. Pharmacies are already open for the extended hours that the Government want primary care to be available, and they already provide out-of-hours services. Pharmacists are well motivated and highly trained professionals who, to a large extent, know their patients. I believe that, with the right negotiations with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee and others, a good deal could be reached to ensure that pharmacists' expertise and capacity are fully utilised for the benefit of patients.
	I envisage pharmacists becoming far more involved in screening. They can take blood pressure and cholesterol measurements, recall people for follow-up as necessary, and work with local GPs and others to ensure that that capacity is best used. As part of the launch of the pharmacy White Paper, I urge my right hon. Friend to include pharmacy as much as possible in the new screening programme.

Peter Bone: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate), whose colleague I am on the Select Committee on Health. I also welcome the Minister of State's presence here today, because she has been most helpful in the past.
	If my understanding is correct, preventive health services are right, first, because they improve people's livesearlier interventions ensure that they do not develop a serious condition, so their quality of life is enhanced. Secondly, preventive measures save money, because treating someone early saves the NHS from having to spend lots of money later on treating them as an acute patient. All right hon. and hon. Members are in favour of preventive health services, such as screening. The job of the Opposition is to prod the Government and to keep prodding. We have to try to make the legislation that the Government produce more effective.
	Today, I shall talk about something that affects people in every constituency in the country, but that has been a fairly acute problem in my area: the treatment of wet-eye age-related macular degeneration. Each year, the condition affects about 40 people in every constituency in the country, and it is the most common cause of blindness. The condition is treatable through a simple series of injections, which either stops the loss of sight that would end in blindness, or restores sight that has been lost. Several drugs are licensed for the purpose; the two most commonly used are Lucentis and Macugen.
	It is fairly easy for a patient to recognise the symptomsthey are losing their sightso they go to their GP, who immediately refers them to a consultant. The consultant sees the patient, then tells him, You have wet-eye AMD. You could go blind within three months. The good news is that a simple series of injections will stop you going blind. The bad news is that you cannot have it on the NHSbut come and see me two miles down the road, and I'll treat you at 800 per injection. The NHS is saying to people that they can go blind, or they can go private and pay for treatment.
	Suppose that someone had a bad knee, such that in several years' time they would need a joint replacement. That would be bad enough. Obviously, it would not be cost-effective to wait; preventive treatment will ensure that that person can keep walking. However, we are talking about someone who will go blind within three months if immediate action is not taken, and the drugs are available. Something is wrong.
	The Government have been extremely helpful, and there has been a cross-party campaign to get the problem sorted out. The Minister replied to my speech in my Westminster Hall debate on the issue, and was most helpful.
	The Prime Minister has been extremely helpful, too. At Prime Minister's questions, he rightly saidI paraphrasethat the situation was not right, but that it was a matter for NICE. Surprisingly, just two weeks after he said that, NICE came up with some guidance. The Royal National Institute of Blind People issued a press release immediately afterwards, entitled NICE delivers early Christmas present to thousands at risk of going blind. NICE said that primary care trusts should treat people who have wet age-related macular degeneration immediately with the new, approved drugs, Lucentis and Macugen. It put that guidance out to consultation.
	NICE does not have a particularly good history on the issue. It introduced guidance last year that said, We'll only treat someone once they've gone blind in one eye, which was wholly inappropriate. It generated the biggest response to any consultation by NICE; there was outrage. NICE took that on board, and the Government urged it to look again at the matter. As a result, it came out with the new guideline, which is wholly welcome.
	I would probably not be giving this speech if that guideline was being implemented. My PCT, Northamptonshire Teaching primary care trust, knows about the problem because of the campaign that I have run, which my excellent local newspaper,  The Evening Telegraph, has supported, and because the BBC's Politics Show highlighted one of the cases. However, the PCT sent me two lettersjust to make sure that I got the messageand, obviously because I am not a very sensible MP, they put a sentence in bold and in capitals, so that I did not miss it. It says:
	NICE has not yet issued final guidance to the NHS on these drugs.
	The rest of the letter says that the PCT will not take any action, and will continue to let people in my constituency in Northamptonshire go blind until NICE eventually issues its final guidance. That is outrageous and there is no moral justification for it. We are talking about spending a few hundred pounds on action that will prevent people from going blind.
	The amount that the NHS would have to pay for treatment for someone who goes blind is enormous. Also, what about all the social consequences? I have a constituent, Mrs. Doreen Marshall, a lovely lady in her 80s. She is the carer for her husband, who is in his 90s, and who has some disability problems. They live separately, and they are not a burden to the state. She is going blind in both eyes. If she had not paid to have the treatment privately, the state would have had to pay out millions of pounds over the next few years. It is preventive health services of that kind that the Government are keen for PCTs to take note of. Luckily for Mrs. Marshall, a private company paid her treatment bills. When the Minister winds up, I ask her to reiterate what the Prime Minister said on the subject: PCTs should take notice of what NICE has just said, and should, as a matter of urgency, start to treat people who would otherwise go blind.

Andy Reed: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone). I know that he takes preventive health seriously, because we have been in the gym at the same time twice this week, so I congratulate him on the efforts that he makes. I will focus on one small, specific issue to do with preventive health services, so as to allow other Members their full time allocation.
	The debate is topical because of the structural changes to Sport England. One might wonder why on earth that was a matter for a topical debate on the health service. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is rightly making Sport England concentrate on sport. That means that a vast amount of work is being donework that is increasingly important to all of us who have campaigned on sports and physical activity issues over the past decade. We recognise that the Department of Health, through the PCTs working with agencies such as local government, will be vital to increasing participation in physical activity and sport. That is needed if we are to prevent problems arising from what is probably the most important issue facing the countrythe levels of obesity that are likely in future.
	The Foresight report demonstrated that by 2050, if no action is taken, or even if current levels of action are maintained, it is likely that up to 65 per cent. of men and 50 per cent. of women will be clinically obese. That means that 40 per cent. of the national health service budget will be taken up by that issue. If there is a ticking time bomb, it is obesity.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) has been at the forefront of campaigning on the matter for a decade, and I follow. I am glad that he spoke on another topic today. If he had spoken about obesity, he would be the expert on it. We have talked anecdotally about the impact of obesity, but the Foresight report and some of the work that has been done by NICE, which is a well kept secret and does not seem to be in the public domain, has demonstrated that tackling physical activity levels and building in lifestyle changes to deal with obesity is one of the most cost-effective steps that we can take.
	I have some figures. NICE works on the basis that it would recommend a drug up to a cost limit of 20,000 per life year. By contrast, the work that it has done on physical activity in the workplace and obesity, and the work that it is doing on physical activity and the environment, indicate a cost of just 1,000 per life year for the introduction of physical activity. So as most speakers have said, prevention is better than cure. If we spend 1,000 now, the likelihood is that we are helping to avoid the prospect of 40 per cent. of the health service budget in 2050 being devoted solely to tackling the problems of obesity.
	I am one of those who has been going around saying that obesity will kill the present generation and our life chances will be reduced. We could be the first generation to see a reduction in our life expectancy. Foresight and some of the work carried out by NICE suggest that that is a myth. The reality and the problem is that obesity is an inefficient killer. That is not much consolation. Obesity makes us ill for a long time. It reduces our life chances eventually, but in the meantime we are an enormous burden on the national health service. More importantly for the individual, it is an enormous burden on their lifestyle. We need to make sure that obesity is at the top of the health agenda.
	In this crucial period during which the future direction of Sport England is decided, the Department should make it clear that it is willing to work with PCTs in local partnerships including county sports partnerships and local authorities, to encourage physical activity and bring about lifestyle changes. The Department cannot shirk that responsibility.
	Now that the importance of school sports is recognised, about 30 per cent. of those leaving school will take part in activities that we recognise as sportteam games and organised sporting activity. About 50 per cent., hopefully, will want to have a fairly active lifestyle and engage in other activities that reduce our chances of becoming obese. But 10 to 20 per cent. will require interventions, and that is where more work is neededfor example, among young girls aged 13 or 14, where there is a significant drop-off in participation rates, among young Asian women, who have cultural issues, and among those with disability and special needs, who are still missing out on sporting activity in schools. Those who are involved in school sport and even the Youth Sport Trust, in discussions this week, recognise that progress has been made elsewhere, but admit that it is lacking for those with disabilities and special needs at school.
	Over the coming weeks and months, while Sport England is developing a strategy, it is crucial that the Department of Health offers guidance and support to PCTs to ensure that sport is delivered at a local level. Local partnerships exist already. I chair my own county sports partnerships. We are fortunate that the director of public health in Leicestershire is a triathlete. He is part-funded by the PCT and part-funded by the local authority. That situation represents a win-win, but it does not necessarily replicate itself around the country. In schools a decade ago, if there was a good head who was interested in sports, sport happened at the school. I want to make sure that for sport, there is no postcode lottery.
	Some PCTs have demonstrated the good practice of GP referral schemes, physical activity co-ordinators, creating the built environment and workplace activity. We should recognise that people's lifestyles are changing dramatically, particularly from a sports perspective. By 2010, 65 per cent. of people will be working an atypical working week, so working 9 to 5 or a 3 o'clock kick-off for a football or rugby game will no longer be the norm. Sport, physical activity and recreation must take account of that shift in balance. That is why the workplace will be increasingly important. Governing bodies of sport and others need to try and work out what form sport and physical activity will take in the next 10 to 20 years. It will be very different. Everyone knows how difficult it is after a long day at work to come home and motivate oneself to go back out to do something physical.
	We know that 20 per cent. of people will always be keen to do sport and physical activity and another 20 per cent. can be encouraged, but the couch potatoes and others in the middle should not be put off or frightened by the prospect of having to take up a sport or to do something really dramatic such as joining a gym, because we can build a lot of activity into our daily lives. The World Health Organisation target of five times 30 minutes of moderate activity a week needs to be explained to people. We may be at the slightly difficult level of talking about active hoovering, but moderate exercise such as gardening and walking is enough to meet the WHO definition.
	We need to ensure that in our social marketing, which will probably be one of the most important things that we do, we sell the idea of building physical activity into our daily lives. I do not envy the Government because I have seen the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology paper on changing behaviour, which says that that is one of the hardest things to do. The problem is that everyone recognises the need to change their behaviour in order to reduce the potential for obesity, but as with new year resolutions, we may do well until the end of January but come February all resolve goes out of the window. We must change the whole way in which we lead our lives.
	I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister met the premier rugby clubs recently who have been working on behalf of the Department on the five-a-day campaign. I visited Saracens rugby club to see its community programme and went to some of the schools with the players. The motivation that results from being told by a leading sports star to eat five portions of fruit or vegetables a day is far greater than when a politician, someone in a white coat, or evenwith all due respecta doctor says so. I saw the motivation created as a result of the programme being delivered by sportspeople throughout the country, and I would urge that there should be a connection between sport and more moderate levels of physical activity.
	This is a topical debate because the next few weeks, or possibly the next couple of months, will be crucial to delivering what most of us in sport have wanted for a decade or so, and that is for the Department for Health to take a real interest in increasing physical activity and changing lifestyles to tackle the obesity time bomb that is heading our way.

Richard Taylor: I thank those hon. Members who have spoken recently for accelerating to give me nearly my full time. I understand that the Minister will also be very generous and has said that she can manage with four minutes. I shall try to give her a little longer, but I am grateful for this opportunity.
	I always enjoy following my friend on the Health Committee, the hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate), the only other doctor. I can cap his years in the NHS by quite some time, and I remember the terrible things that we used to do. We carried around hatpins with red knobs to test visual fields, and the sharp end we used to test for sensation from patient to patient to patient. Can you imagine it? Things have moved on tremendously.
	I shall be slightly pedantic and separate prevention from screening, because they are quite different and I do not want us to lose sight of the well-established preventive techniques that are essential because we are rushing to screening, which may not be so evidence-based. I do not need to mention stopping smoking because obviously the effect of not smoking in public places is already showing benefits in the reduction in heart attacks. That is absolutely incredible.
	Tackling obesity, as the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) said, is crucial. I am sure the Minister is aware that one of the recommendations in the Health Committee report in 2004 on obesity was that there should be a specific Cabinet public health committee, chaired by the Secretary of State for Health, but bringing together Ministers with responsibility for health, education, sport, transport, trade and industry, environment, food and rural affairs and work and pensionsthe whole shooting match. When the Government responded to the report they said that such a Committee had been set up and I should like to know whether it is still active and what it has achieved, because that was important.
	I have just one quick point to raise on inoculation. The absolute value of inoculation is dramatically demonstrated when we hear about the greatest cause of death among children on the African continentit is not HIV, malaria or tuberculosis, but the pneumococcus. We have virtually eradicated that here.
	Prevention of sexually transmitted infections is vital. In the Health Committee report on that, we recognised the huge importance of sexual and relationship education, or SRE, at schools and recommended that it should become a core part of the national curriculum. The Government response, just three months later, stated that SRE was a statutory requirement; I was never clear about whether it had been all the time or we had achieved it. The Government also said that they had asked Ofsted to report specifically on the progress of SRE teaching. Is that being done?
	The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology drew attention to the other alarming thing about HIV/AIDS in its recent note about the condition in the UK. People are less scared of HIV/AIDS than initially because it is now controllable, but the salutary warning is that the fastest increase in HIV/AIDS is happening among men who have sex with men. They are white men, who in the vast majority of cases acquire the disease in this country. The horrifying figure is that about one in 20 men between the ages of 15 and 44 who have sex with men are HIV-positive. The problem is huge; as we rush to screening, we must not forget the well proven bits of health prevention.
	I was delighted that the Minister mentioned the National Screening Committee because when I heard the Prime Minister's comments I wondered whether he had taken that into account. Certainly, aspects of cancer screening and screening for sexually transmitted infections are well established. However, as many hon. Members have said, blanket and not necessarily targeted screening for a wide range of conditions has not yet proved worth while.
	I turn to screening for abdominal aortic aneurisms. My search on the website is obviously a few months out of date because I did not know that the National Screening Committee had got to the stage of recommending it. I found its draft studies on the issue and was horrified by the extent of the problemthe number of people who would have to be screened and of staff who would have to be trained to do the screening. After that, there would have to be many people in vascular surgery departments to mend the aneurisms that had gone beyond certain limits. Once an aneurism is above a certain size, it has to be followed regularly, which involves more scans. I would love to know from the Minister that all that has been taken into account.
	I shall end by quoting something from that bible for doctors, the Merck manual. It emphasises some of what the Minister has already said:
	The premises of screening are that early detection of disease can improve outcomes in patients with occult disease and that the false-positive results that often occur during screening do not create a burden that exceeds the benefit of early detection.
	The paragraph concludes:
	If 12 different tests for 12 different diseases were done, the chance of at least one false-positive result is 46 per cent.! This underscores the need for caution when deciding on a panel of screening tests and interpreting the results.

Dawn Primarolo: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am delighted briefly to respond to the debate. I thank all hon. Members for their thoughtful contributions on this subject. I strongly support the remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) and others about the excellent work that is going on throughout the national health service and the debt of gratitude that we owe to the dedication of the staff in delivering these services. I am sure that we would all want to reinforce that point.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Mrs. Hodgson) made an excellent speech in which she made two points. First, she drew attention to health inequalities and the importance of the role of prevention and strategies linked with public health policies to ensure that we reach out to hard-to-reach groups. As my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) noted in his important contribution, that must go much wider than just the health services themselves. The most important aspect of public health policy is the combination of understanding the risks and the causes and bringing together the public services, the voluntary and community sector and organisations such as Sport England to bear down on the particular issues that we need to address.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West is absolutely right as regards her second point on the importance of symptom awareness and early detection leading to treatment. As she and the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) said, screening matters. We must understand clearly the distinction between prevention strategies for ill health and all the various strategies that we can deploy, and use screening when necessary, when proven and when it gives the required outcome, quickly followed by the appropriate treatment.
	The hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) talked about human papilloma virus and vaccinations up to the age of 26. We are following the advice that has been given to us by the scientific bodies about where it is best to use such vaccination. This is about prevention, not treatment; that has been a theme throughout the debate. He also made an important point about financial incentives in the health service and how we can ensure that they are not skewed only to ill-health treatment. I assure him that the operating and outcomes framework issued to the national health service this December has many public health objectives within it and seeks to address exactly the point that he raised.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford, eloquently using his experience, as ever, talked about the transformation in the health service and the enormous possibilities that exist to intervene speedily in cancers and other areas given early diagnosis and the crucial importance of screening, with a balance across all the fields. I entirely agree with him about pharmacies. They are a great untapped resource which will expand access in the NHS and ensure that we all get the appropriate treatment at the right time, and that we are able to be involved in and control our own health and well-being and to understand much more about the causes of ill health and therefore how we, as individuals, have a role to play in preventing it.
	I was sorry to hear the comments of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) about wet-eye macular degeneration. He, with others, has been a great advocate in that regard in this House. We are talking specifically about a certain treatment. Although the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has not made a final determination, I have been clear in this House and in correspondence that until that happens the primary care trust should not refuse treatment in this area for any other reason than on a clinical basisthat is the clear guidance given to PCTs. I am happy to consider the matter further and pursue it for him if he will send me the correspondence.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough has been a fantastic advocate in this House in ensuring that people understand the complexities of issues such as obesity and the importance of using all the available opportunities and levers to tackle them and to understand the roles played by the built environment, transport, activity and food, as well as health care. I absolutely agree with him about the fantastic scheme that the Saracens are running, and about the importance of a comprehensive approach. On the question of a partnership, under the operating and outcomes frameworks issued to the NHS we require primary care trusts to work with local authorities, organisations such as Sport England and the voluntary and community sector, through local area agreements, to bring to bear all the policy opportunities to tackle the problem.
	I defer to the enormous experience of the hon. Member for Wyre Forest, and to his knowledge of this area. I am glad, however, that he did not have his pin with the red head on him, so that he was not able to stick it into everyone in the Chamber. He is right: we have to be clear about the difference between prevention and screening, and about when it is appropriate to deploy measures relating to either.
	This has been an excellent debate and our proposals to expand a preventive health service, linked, crucially, with screening programmes where appropriate, mean that we intend to ensure that, as we look forward to the 60th anniversary of the national health service this year and the celebration of that huge achievement, we go forward with confidence to improve the range and quality of services, both for treatment and
	 It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings, the motion lapsed, without Question put, pursuant to Temporary Standing Order (Topical debates).

Harriet Harman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Earlier, I announced the business of the House for the next two weeks. I overlooked to announce the business that will take place in Westminster Hall. I sincerely apologise to the Leader of the House [ Interruption. ] I am sorry; I apologise to the shadow Leader of the House for the fact that she has had to return to the Chamber unexpectedly.
	I would like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 17 and 24 January will be:
	Thursday 17 JanuaryA debate on extending participation in sport.
	Thursday 24 JanuaryA debate on the report from the Foreign Affairs Committee on Global Security: The Middle East.

Theresa May: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In relation to matters raised at business questions today, I wonder whether I might seek your guidance as to how I can ensure that the record is put straight. There was an exchange at business questions about

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not want to interrupt the right hon. Lady too soon, but all she can comment on is the matter that has been raised by the change of business.

Theresa May: This is a separate point of order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It must be related to the point of order that the Leader of the House made on the business for next week, and nothing else.

Theresa May: I seek your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise if I attempted to relate my point of order on business questions to the point of order from the Leader of the House, but it is about business questions. I have a point of order about business questions this morning. Is it not possible for me to raise it as a separate point of order?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Yes.  [ Laughter. ] Briefly.

Theresa May: An issue was raised in business questions as to whether the Leader of the Opposition had received the Senior Salaries Review Body report on MPs' pay, and the Leader of the House indicated that it had been sent to him on Monday. I understand that it was received in his office yesterday, but he did not receive volume 1, which related to the report on Members' pay. He received only volume 2, which contains the appendices. I wanted your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as to how I could ensure that the record was put straight on that matter.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Clearly, all documents that are necessary in order that Members of this House can carry out their business should be made available in the correct way as quickly as possible. The right hon. Lady has made her point, it is now clearly on the record and perhaps we ought to move on to the next business.

Armed Forces Personnel

Des Browne: I beg to move,
	That this House has considered the matter of armed forces personnel.
	I welcome the opportunity to debate issues relating to the men and women of the armed forces. It is common ground that they are remarkable people, who perform extremely difficult and arduous tasks in some of the most dangerous places in the world. I have been deeply impressed by their work and, especially through my visits to Iraq and Afghanistan, I have seen at first hand the magnificent efforts that they make. Everything we achieve is down to them and they have my deepest gratitude and most profound respect.
	As a Government, we have a duty to ensure that we offer armed services personneland their familiesthe support that they need and deserve. Delivering that poses several challenges, but I believe that the Government are rising to meet them and will continue to do so.
	In the past 18 months, we have made real improvements to the welfare package that we offer our forces. I will not list them all in detail here, but they include: the introduction of a tax-free operational bonus of 2,230; council tax discount for those on operations; free post; more free telephone calls and internet access; a new child care voucher scheme that can be used both in the UK and overseas; improvements to mental health treatment; a military managed ward at Selly Oak, and an increase in the number of military nurses there. That is alongside all the improvements made to ensure that those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan have the best equipment and kit possible.
	Hon. Members will have seen reports in the media this morning about a small number of UK service personnel and civilians who received life-saving emergency blood transfusions of US blood while deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. That blood might not have had a valid retrospective test. First, I should stress that the blood transfusions saved those people's lives. However, even though only a small number of personnel18are affected and the risks of infection are very low, we take the matter extremely seriously. Immediately on learning about the risk to our people, my Department acted quickly and promptly to establish who might be involved and where those people were and to ensure that they were offered the appropriate support, counselling and testing. All 18 UK service personnel, whether still serving or veterans, have now been contacted. I would like to reassure hon. Members that, while our own procedures for blood transfusions on operations are robust, we are not complacent and review them regularly.
	We have achieved a lot in the support that we provide not only for our forces but for their families. Families have a key role in supporting their loved ones. Without them, the British armed forces could not be the success story they are. The frequency with which they are required to move location affects their access to health services, the education for their children, employment prospects for partners and, obviously, their personal relationships. We need to take stock of what we have already achieved and what more is needed.
	That is why the Government have launched a cross-Government personnel strategy, which is consideringfor the first timewhat more might be done across all Departments to support past and present members of the armed forces and their families. The personnel Command Paper will consider the progress already made, identify areas for improvement and propose new initiatives for our and other Departments. Key matters on which we will concentrate include accommodation, education, health, welfare and social care and inquests, and veterans support, which cuts across many of those issues and others.

John Baron: I welcome the review of accommodation because it is important. However, given that the cross-party Public Accounts Committee has described nearly half of all service accommodation as substandard and that the Army's surveys show that half the soldiers feel that the maintenance of their accommodation is not what it should be, does the Secretary of State at least understand the strong feeling of many soldiers that the Government have forgotten the first world war concept of homes fit for heroes?

Des Browne: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which I shall tackle in more detail in my speech. To give the matter, which is so important to our armed forces, the priority that it deserves, I shall respond to his point generally now and deal with some aspects in more detail in a few moments.
	The hon. Gentleman is right to identify the issue as an important one. I would have more respect for him if his memory of how we came to be in this position was a bit more comprehensive than it appears to be. I say that because we have discussed the issue over some months and I have been impressed by the ability of hon. Members on both sides of the House to recognise that it is a legacy problem, arising from a failure to invest in that accommodation over many decadesand, in some cases, over the best part of a century.
	That means that all of us in the House have a responsibility. The issue needs to be addressed in this century, and within a reasonable time period. My responsibility as the Secretary of State is to identify the resources, and a time scale and a programme of work that are reasonable, taking into account all the other challenges that go with dealing with accommodation. They include the fact that we have busy armed forces that have to operate in the same environment in which we carry out that work and the fact that people have to live there. There must be a recognition of the capacity challenge in relation to our ability to do that and the logistical challenge in relation to planning. I have repeatedly set out our plans on that and will do so again in this speech. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that that is insufficientthat there is a faster and more efficient way of doing the work and that his party intends to put in additional resources of such a scale that the work will be completed quickerhe should give us chapter and verse on that. I would be pleased to hear that, because I have heard no such arguments from anybody.
	We have to accept that the responsibility will stretch over a period of time. I believe that I, as the Secretary of State, and the Department are facing up to it. We are putting the investment in and I recognise the effect that it has. There are manifest improvements. I invite the hon. Gentleman to go round the estate and visit the places where those improvements are not just manifest, but are being enjoyed on a considerable scale by our armed forces. He has that invitation, and he can rise to his feet to tell me that he accepts it. If he does, I will make arrangements for him to go and see some of the best, as well as some of the worst if he likes.

John Baron: I welcome that invitation from the Defence Secretary and will indeed take him up on it. Perhaps he would also like to join me in a visit to the cavalry barracks in Hounslow, to which the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers will return in the spring. I will show him accommodation that is clearly substandard and that has been condemned in the past.
	However, to return to the Defence Secretary's earlier point, although I accept that we cannot consider the issue in isolation, the Government have been in power for 10 years. No matter what he does, he cannot run away from that fact, nor can he run away from the fact that the Army's own surveys and the House's

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. May I say to the Defence Secretary and the House that we have a 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches today? Time is of the essence and the hon. Gentleman is seeking to catch my eye. Interventions take time and so does responding to them, however seductive that might appear, as the Defence Secretary will be aware. I ask the House to bear that in mind.

Des Browne: I am conscious of the need for me to respect the rights of Back Benchers to make contributions to this important debate.
	The hon. Gentleman and I have much more in common on the issue than would appear from this exchange. We will seek an opportunity to share invitations outside the Chamber in such a way that we can both see the best and the worst, and the scale and nature of the challenge.

Kevan Jones: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the problem with the example of the Hounslow barracks, to which the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) referred, is the fact that the Army needs to make a strategic decision in London on where it will concentrate its housing? That decision must be taken before the major investments come forward, so although Hounslow is an example of bad practice, it is also a false example.

Des Browne: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing that out. It would not serve this debate well for me to go through all the individual challenges that we face in accommodation and on the estate. It would serve us and our relationship with the armed forces well if we recognised that the issue has been neglected for far too long and that it is now being addressed on a scale that will improve the situation within a reasonable period of time. I will ensure that the resources that are devoted to that are properly invested and that if I find more, I will devote them to it, bearing in mind the challenges created by other work going on across the country on securing the building capacity to carry it out.
	Let me move on. The personnel Command Paper to which I referred is being prepared. The Government would welcome constructive contributions to the strategy that underpins that. I assure the House that all contributions from right hon. and hon. Members will be considered.
	We also want to see the nation as a whole understanding and appreciating our armed forces. That is why we are undertaking a national recognition study to identify exactly what more can be done. My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) is leading that study and I am sure that the whole House looks forward to hearing his proposals. The end result will, I hope, be a nation that better demonstrates its appreciation of what our brave servicemen and women do on our behalf. They deserve no less.

Patrick Mercer: Will the Secretary of State consider or put his weight behind requests for a decoration, medal or award for the families of the dead and those who have been wounded in action?

Des Browne: The issues that underpin the hon. Gentleman's question generate a significant amount of support across the House and in our wider society, as is also seen in campaigns to achieve the same. They are welcome to the extent that they show the level of support generated in recognition of what our armed forces are doing. I am sure that he, among others, is particularly well placed to understand what I am going to say.
	As a Minister of the Crown, I am very wary of expressing opinions about individual medals and honours for the very reason that this country has a system that relies on a process that is independent of politiciansand most certainly independent of politicians in the Executive. Taking decisions about whether medals should be struck for service, valour or other contributions involves a process that this Department reports and accounts for, but in respect of which decision making lies outside and independent of that Department, which is as it should be. The assessment of whether recommendations should be made to the independent committee is made in the traditional wayand it is now constitutional, I believe, as it is a convention of the constitution that is well practised by the chiefs of staff. That is where it is should lie. That is why, when I am constantly invited to express views about this issue, I resist the temptation to do so.
	Candidly, at the end of the day, if most politicians are honest with themselves, we all understand why it is better if politicians stand well away from this particular form of Executive decision making. I suspect that if it were left to politicians, there would be a tendency to over-decorate and present awards and baubles to too many people. That is not what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting, but I think that he understands my point, which is why the convention exists. I trust that he will allow me to respect that convention, without diminishing my tribute to the motivation that underpins his argument.

Chris Bryant: I want to ask my right hon. Friend about an issue that affects many service personnel. When we debate the treatment of casualties, we tend to focus on what they receive when they get back to the United Kingdom rather than on the first hour or two after suffering their injuries. However, if we want to ensure that they live, the first hour or two is the most important time for intervention. Is he confident that we do everything that we can in theatre and that we explore every scientific advance to ensure that as many of our casualties as possible are kept alive?

Des Browne: I unequivocally assure my hon. Friend that, if not the best, we are as good as the best in the world in the medical care that we provide to our forces in operations. I believe that I have made a total of 12 visits to Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 18 months and on every occasion, if my memory serves me correctly, I have made a point of attending the hospital and medical facilities in order to pay respect to, and admire, the enormous skill displayed there. The equipment is second to none and the facilities are second to none. That is now playing through.
	I cannot remember precisely the evidence that the surgeon-general gave to the Select Committee, but he provided some striking evidence of survival rates. Candidlythis relatively crude way of putting it does no disrespect to the nature of these circumstancesvery experienced consultants have said to me on more than one occasion that many people were returning from theatre in circumstances in which it might have been thought that they had no right to be alive within a comparatively short period of time. The success of their treatment during that period and thereafter is second to none. I believe that those people are receiving the best possible treatment, and that the centre is the match of the best polytrauma centres in civilian hospitals and the equal of any other military medical facility in the world. That is to the credit of those whoduring our time in office, but before that as wellhave met the difficult challenges of designing a modern medical facility and service. By common consent it was not always the best that it could have been, but I believe that it is now.
	Given that this is a comparatively short debate, and given the House's new rules about Front-Bench speeches, time is of the essence. I intend to concentrate for the remainder of my speech on a small number of issues that are of key concern both to the armed forces and to hon. Members.
	I do not deny that, at present, members of the armed forces bear a heavy load. As I have said before, along with the chiefs of staff, they are stretched. We are asking a great deal of our service personnel, and the operational tempo is high. However, we have taken decisive action to address that. In the last 12 months alone, we have reduced our commitments in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq. Between July and September this year, 17 per cent. of regular forces were deployed on operations. That is a reduction of 5 per cent. on the previous quarter. This spring, conditions permitting and subject to the advice of commanders on the ground, we aim to improve on that and reduce numbers in Iraq further.
	All three services are undergoing restructuring to realign personnel numbers so that they can be focused on where they are needed most. The retention incentives that we have introduced are proving successful. Of those offered the incentive package, 100 per cent. of unmanned aerial vehicle operators and 88 per cent. of infantrymen have accepted it. Contrary to what hon. Members may have been led to believe by recent media reports, recruitment to the armed forces has increased. The most recent annual statistics show an increase in the number joining the forces. In 2006-07, we gained 19,790 new recruits from civilian life99.6 per cent. of the target. That is an increase of 9.3 per cent. Army recruiting increased by 8 per cent. during the last financial year, with infantry enlistments up by 25 per cent.

Patrick Mercer: I thank the Secretary of State for his generosity in giving way again. The fact remains that while recruitment may be improving, he knows very well that retention in training is appalling40 per cent. of infantry recruits fall outand retention in service is equally dreadful. Will he be quite clear about the depth of the crisis that faces, in particular, our combat arms, many of which are having to deploy at 50 per cent. of their combat effectiveness?

Des Browne: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have enormous respect for his knowledge of the circumstances, but I do not accept that there is a crisis, although I do accept that there are issues in relation to retention. We are operating in an employment market that is very different from the one in which the forces operated 10 years or more ago, when many young men in my constituency had no alternative but to join the armed forces. We are competing now. Another crucially important point is that the added value of an armed forces training makes it a very valuable commodity. The private sector is competing to attract away from the armed forces people whom we have formed, matured and trained to a level which, in my view, would not be reached in any other walk of life.
	Those are the realities, and they face not just our armed forces but armed forces throughout the developed world. All the Defence Ministers to whom I speak face the same challenges and problems. I recognise that we must develop methods, along with a modern response to the armed forces by society which is such that people will not only volunteer or allow themselves to be recruited but, once trained and effective, will stay in the forces and continue to contribute. We have had considerable success in some areas, although there are issues which I do not seek to avoid. The retention incentives need to be developedand we have been developing them with some success, as is clear from the examples that I have given.
	Obviously, a high percentage of personnel are currently deployed on operations and, because of that, harmony levels have been affected. Harmony levels have, however, improved over the past year by 3 per cent. for the Army, and they have remained steady for the Royal Navy, but they have worsened for the RAF, with 6.7 per cent. breaching harmony compared with 2.9 per cent. a year ago. I am grateful to all our personnel for their efforts, but particularly to those whose harmony guidelines have not been met. We have a duty to recognise such commitment; living up to that duty underpins everything I have set out today.
	In recognition of the Government's commitment to the armed forces, we granted them the best public sector pay deal last year: 3.3 per cent. In particular, we addressed the concerns of the lowest ranks by increasing their pay by more than 9 per cent. In fact, in all but one of the last five years armed forces salary growth has exceeded that of the whole economy.
	One of the key issues affecting both families and single people in the forces is accommodation. To be frank, when our men and women in uniform return from theatre to their barracks, it is deplorable that some of them return to a very poor standard of accommodation. Progress is being made. In the last financial year, we delivered 5,822 modernised bed spaces; this financial year, we expect to deliver approximately 7,000 modernised bed spaces, and in the next financial year we also plan to deliver 7,000 bed spaces. Overall, it is expected that about 60,000 modernised bed spaces will be delivered by April 2013.
	For the last year our public position has been that some 5 billion will be spent on housing and other accommodation over the next decade. That figure was an extrapolation of future spend based, in part, on current spending levels, and was made before the outcome of the comprehensive spending review was known. However, the 5 billion figure did not take into account a number of large private finance initiative projects that include living accommodation. The most notable of them is Project Allenby/Connaught, which will provide modern living and working accommodation for some 18,000 military and civilian personnel in the Salisbury plain and Aldershot garrisons. Maintenance and leasing of service families accommodation and single living accommodation worldwide was also excluded. In addition, the amount we plan to spend on maintenance work is now higher than that included in the 5 billion figure. Accordingly, we have reassessed our likely spend on accommodation for the next 10 years to take account of those elements previously excluded. The total amount will in fact be 8.4 billion. Of that, 3.1 billion will be spent on new-build and upgraded accommodation, 2.3 billion on refurbishment and maintenance and 3 billion on routine costs, including rent, other leasing costs and the equivalent of council tax. Over that same period, we also expect to receive 2.4 billion in rental income from service personnel, leaving a net expenditure of 6 billion.
	We want to help personnel become independent home owners. We already have in place the offer of a personal loan towards a deposit after four years of service, but I think that we can improve on that and, as part of the Command Paper, work is being done to introduce arrangements to make housing more affordable for military families. We have also just extended the key worker status scheme so that all servicemen and women can qualify for the open market homebuy schemea scheme that can boost the buying power of a forces family by up to a third. Finally, we have agreed with the Department for Communities and Local Government that those leaving the services will have access to social housing on a par with everyone else in the area in which they will settle; they will no longer go to the bottom of the local authority housing lists as they did before.

Bob Russell: Can the Secretary of State confirm not only that his wish that that happens has been conveyed to those local councils that have large numbers of military personnel, but that those councils are carrying out what he wishes to happen?

Des Browne: The intention is that it will be a statutory duty, so if the councils behave legally there will be no problem about them knowing about it. A problem we faced in the past was that there was a variable interpretation of parts of the legislation but, in consultation with the DCLG, we have agreed that we will amend the legislation so that there is clarity and that best practice will be applied across the board.
	Should the worst happen and families lose loved ones, our support must be the best possible. At such a sensitive time, we must deliver the right support and care in the right way at the right time. I am very sorry that that has not been the experience to date for some families.
	Every serviceperson killed on operations overseas whose body is repatriated to England or Wales is the subject of an inquest. Currently, all repatriation is done through RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire. Once repatriation has taken place, it is now policy, wherever possible, to give jurisdiction to the coroner closest to the bereaved family. That avoids backlogs and improves access for families. Extra resources have been made available to both the Oxfordshire and Wiltshire coroners. Those extra resources, and recent policy changes, have made significant improvements. Some 75 inquests were completed in 2007, which is more than were completed in the previous five years put together.
	This Government value our service personnel highly. They are top of my agenda and the Government's agenda. We are committed to supporting them, both on operations and at home, with actions not just words and during service and after it, helping both them and their families.

Ian Davidson: Does the Secretary of State agree that behind the military personnel lie those who supply the forces? They also need guarantees of job security. Will he clarify where we have reached with the placement of the military afloat reach and sustainabilityMARSproject orders? Will he tell us in particular whether or not there is a guarantee that they will be placed in a way that ensures that job continuity is maintained, particularly on the Clyde?

Des Browne: My hon. Friend is a persistent and, on occasion, imaginative advocate for his constituents who work in the Clyde shipyards. He is equalled in his capacity to raise these issues in any circumstances only by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson). They share an important business, representing people on either side of the Clyde, and they know that those yards have recently enjoyed a particularly purple period in terms of the placing of Government orders.
	For those who do not know what the MARS project is about, I should say that it is designed to provide the floating logistical support for the Royal Navywhat used to be known as the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service; it aims to replace those ageing ships. There are several elements to it, one of which, the tanker element, has been advertised in the  Official Journal of the European Union. No decision has yet been made as to where the order will be placed, and no decisions have been made about the other elements of the process.
	I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson) recognises in the Government's actionsand, indeed, in their wordsour commitment to maintaining a sustainable shipbuilding capacity well into the future, for the good reason that we are making significant investment in the Royal Navy. We want to ensure that we maintain the skills in this country to be able to continue to make that investment and to make the best of that substantial investment once we have made it and these ships are afloat. He can rest assured that his constituents on the Clyde can look forward to many decades of work delivering orders that will be placed by the Government.
	An underlying allegation has been made from numerous quarters that deep down the Government do not really care about the men and women in the British armed forces, that the covenant between the Government and the armed forces is broken and that we are sending people into harm's way without due care and support. That is wholly wrong and false, because we do care and we deliverwe will continue to deliver. We are demonstrating our gratitude and the nation's gratitude, and we are fulfilling our duty properly to support the men and women of the armed forces in return for their self-sacrifice and hard work. They carry out the work on behalf of this nation, and it makes this nation, and the nations of Iraq and Afghanistanand indeed the worlda safer and more stable place.

Liam Fox: May I fully associate myself and the Conservative party with the praise offered by the Secretary of State for the courage, professionalism and sacrifices of our armed forces? As we all recover from the celebration and, in some cases, the excesses of the Christmas period, it is worth remembering that this time of year brings hardship and sacrifice to the family members of some of our armed forces. Unfortunately, war does not stop for Christmas, and our brave servicemen and women, along with their families, have done an outstanding job 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the holiday season. While the rest of the country enjoyed the Christmas break, they were defending our security every single minute.
	Knowing that one's husband or wife, mum or dad, or child spent the holiday in harm's way brings little happiness, of course, to service family members. That is why it is so important that the Government not only get their military policy right, but are open and honest with service members and their families. That is why spin for political gain is so damaging.
	The Prime Minister announced on 2 October that force levels in Iraq would be reduced by 1,000 from 5,500 to 4,500 by the end of the year. No doubt it made many family members very happy to learn that their loved ones might come home in time for Christmas. But like everything else to do with this Government and the armed forces, one has to take a close look at the small print. We now know that when the Prime Minister made his announcement in early October he had given himself a head start of almost 500 troops. Figures released by the Government show that on 9 September, three weeks before the Prime Minister's announcement, there were only 5,030 troops in Iraq, not the 5,500 that he mentioned in his announcement.
	Far from the number of British troops in Iraq being reduced by 1,000, troop figures released just before the holiday recess show that levels in Iraq have been reduced by only 120. During the same period, MOD figures show that the total number of British troops deployed in support of the mission in Iraq, but based elsewhere in the Gulf in Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and at sea, has actually increased by 570. Far from being home by Christmas, British personnel were simply deployed to other locations in the Gulf region. Whether one is in Iraq or somewhere else, separation is still separation and there must have been many disappointed households this Christmas.

Kevan Jones: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that some of those troops based in the Gulf serve the Afghanistan theatre, as well as the Iraq theatre?

Liam Fox: They do indeed. I am not complaining about the military decisions or the presence of the personnel: I am complaining about the fact that the Prime Minister purposely gave one impression, knowing that it was at least partly not true even as he said it.
	During the last defence policy debate on 16 October, the Secretary of State hinted that he was willing to give personnel diverted from service in Iraq to other bases in the region the operational allowance. Now we know, according to a letter sent from his Department to the three services on 2 November, that some British personnel based in Kuwait, specifically at Camp Beuhring the Kuwait support facility, are now entitled to the operational allowance. The appropriate section from the letter states:
	Following advice from PJHQ, the qualifying locations have been reviewed and personnel deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan are to continue to receive the Allowance. That said, personnel who are soon to relocate from Iraq to Beuhring in Kuwait will continue to be eligible for the Operational Allowance, as they will support coalition operations in Iraq.
	Is that clear? Not really, because by that argument one would have thought that those at Al-Udeid in Qatar or working with Nimrods in Oman, or those elsewhere in Kuwait, were also supporting coalition operations in Iraq. But the letter goes on:
	Other Service personnel deployed to Kuwait will not be eligible for the Allowance.
	The Secretary of State dug a hole for himself during the debate on 16 October and frantic talks were held with the Treasury to do something to get him out of it. But rather than a fair remuneration package that supports all personnel deployed in support of both Operations Telic and Herrick, including those in Kuwait, and the wider Gulf region, the Government have produced an inconsistent, incoherent mish-mash. We now have a shambolic situation whereby some personnel in Kuwait will receive the operational allowance while others will not. Those supporting Nimrod reconnaissance missions in the Gulf, the dangers of which have been highlighted, will not receive it. Does anyone seriously think that that is a fair or satisfactory state of affairs?
	That brings us to a related issue. Troops in Iraq are rightly given some recognition with the award of the Iraq medal. Is that medal now to be given to the personnel serving in Kuwait who also receive the operational allowance? One would think that that would only be logical. How can troops be given the operational allowance based on the personal danger to them and not be given the medal? Will they get it?

Des Browne: During my speech, in response to an intervention, I explained at some length my position on the awarding of medals. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was in the House or whether he was listening to what I said. Such decisions are not made by Ministers. I do not know whether what the hon. Gentleman says is correct, but I shall check it with those who take responsibility for such things. He knowswe have discussed this beforethat such decisions are not made by Ministers. I shall not make decisions on medals at the Dispatch Box, but I shall take the hon. Gentleman's point to the appropriate people, who are the chiefs of staff.

Liam Fox: I am grateful for that assurance, but I would have thought that the Secretary of State and his Ministers would want to know about that when making decisions. Such things impact on morale. If those serving get different allowances and if different people who serve together may or may not get a medal, the whole thing is a bit of a dog's breakfast.
	The plans for the council tax refund are linked to the operational allowance, so will some in Kuwait receive a council tax rebate while others will not, because some receive the operational allowance while others do not? It is a simple question. Either they will or they will not. The Secretary of State seems to be telling us that the Government do not really know who gets medals, whether that is related to the allowance or whether the council tax rebate will be related to the operational allowance. That is not a satisfactory state of affairs. The movement of troops on such a scale was in the planning process for weeks if not months. Surely Ministers have simply forgotten, ignored or not bothered to understand the complexity and interaction of the separate issues.
	The Government were in such a rush to gain political points by announcing a draw-down in Iraq that they have overlooked detailed issues that matter a lot to those serving in the region. We are left with a situation where some troops in Kuwait will get the operational allowance while others will not. Troops just across the border in Iraq will get the Operation Telic medal, but those receiving the operational allowance in Kuwait might not. Thousands of British troops across the Gulf region who do important jobs supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan might get nothing at all. What sort of message does that send out to our forces? It is no wonder there is a problem with retention and morale.
	The House is used to hearing comments from the Secretary of State, his Ministers and even the Prime Minister about how they value and support our service personnel. We can argue about the scale of that supportwe have and we willgiven the considerable overstretch that we see in all three services. However, surely we can uniteas we did before Christmas when we debated the military covenantin the belief that, unlike any other Crown servants, we owe our service personnel not only our gratitude but fair recompense for the uniquely dangerous work that they undertake on our behalf.
	If the Government are serious about upholding their half of the military covenant, a couple of issues must be addressed. Most of us are aware of the importance and value that serving personnel place on the armed forces pension scheme. Can the Secretary of State or the Minister tell us what work is being undertaken by the Department on the cost and structure of the armed forces pension scheme? Is the Department reviewing the affordability of the military pension and, if so, is that as a result of Treasury pressure? If a review is under way, the armed forces and the House will want to know why the work is being undertaken, who is undertaking it and what terms of reference have been issued to the review team. I am sure that the Minister will deal with that when he winds up.
	The second issue that must be considered is armed forces pay. Like the police, our armed forces have no right to strike but, unlike the police, they have no federation to represent them. That is why it is vital that the Government accept the valuable work of the independent pay review body. The Secretary of State's message today of support for our armed forces will be viewed against the action taken when the report comes out.
	We do not know what the pay review body will recommend, although the Secretary of State might. The armed forces will be looking for the Government to implement the review body's recommendations in full but, if for some reason they decide not to do so, I hope that the Secretary of State will explain to the House of Commons, and to our armed forces, exactly why.

John Smith: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, across the board, the British armed forces, quite rightly, had the largest public sector pay settlement in 2007? That was in recognition of all the factors to which he has drawn attention.

Liam Fox: As I have made clear, I believe that our armed forces are in a unique position. If the Government decide not to implement in full the independent review body's recommendations, it is only fair to ask the Secretary of State to come to the House of Commons and explain why. Armed forces pay is very important when it comes to improving recruitment and retention, and the House would be entitled to a full explanation if the Government decide to do something different from what is recommended by the independent review body.

James Arbuthnot: The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (John Smith) is right to say that the armed forces received pay increases of between 3 and 9 per cent. last year. The Secretary of State can claim great credit for that, but the trouble was that the pay increase had to be funded out of a real increase in the MOD budget of only 1.5 per cent. That meant that the rest of the budget is under considerable pressuresomething that must be a real worry for the MOD.

Liam Fox: My right hon. Friend is, of course, correct. I can say with all sincerity that it is hard not to feel some sympathy for the Secretary of State, given the budgetary pressures that he is going to face as a result of the spending settlement that he has received. That is why I did not ask him for a specific commitment on the pay review body's recommendations, but only for a commitment to explain any decision fully to the House. We are aware of the pressures facing the MOD as a result of its current financial settlement.
	Armed forces personnel do not live in a vacuum, and the current high levels of deployment have a great impact on service families. If we were to say that a group of people in our society move home more often than the norm, have lower levels of home ownership, higher levels of substandard housing, rising divorce rates and higher levels of family separation, we would not be describing the disadvantaged in the inner cities. We would be talking about our service families, who offer so much to this country.
	We have spoken many times recently in the House about housing, health care and education for service families, and about the need for proper mental health services operating on a through-life basis. Dealing with all those problems is a matter of urgency, but there are places where some people are already making a difference.
	In Cyprus, for example, the organisation Relate is carrying out splendid work to help to hold service families together, with excellent results. The same work could be undertaken more widely here at home if there were greater Government support. I ask the Secretary of State to look at the work that Relate is doing and at the high success rates that it is achieving, because it has brought something very positive to bear on the welfare of service families. I hope that he will find an opportunity to meet Relate staff and discover what help that organisation can give to service families in the UK.
	The Government talk about how they value our armed forces, but their inaction and the subsequent breaking of the military covenant have merely added to the strain already placed on our armed forces. That will have a long-term impact on Britain's military readiness to meet the unexpected challenges that undoubtedly lie ahead.
	The next Government will inherit a military that is both overstretched and undermanned, and in possession of equipment that is worn out as a result of the ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is not an assumption; it is a fact. Equipment is wearing out faster than expectedfaster than in the original plansand there seems to be no visible attempt by the Government to do much about it.
	We are still not properly prepared or equipped for our current undertaking in Afghanistan. When I visited that country a few weeks ago, I found that we had too few serviceable Apache or Chinook helicopters. Spare parts had not been given sufficient consideration in advance, and the current tempo of operations means that there is no option on the ground but to cannibalise other aircraft. The Government's catastrophic decision in 2004 to cut the helicopter budget by 1.4 billion is now biting hard. Even some of the excellent new Mastiff armoured vehiclesI give the Government full credit in that respectare sitting idle because of a lack of spare parts.
	In personnel and manning, the numbers are only getting worse, despite the gloss the Secretary of State tried to put on them. In April last year, the Government's own agency reported that the British armed forces were 5,790 trained personnel short; in December last year, we learned that, in the span of six months, that figure had increased by 1,240 to more than 7,000. The position is deterioratingit is reaching crisis point. That is a scandal.
	Troops are leaving in droves, to the delight of their disenchanted families. The July 2007 Public Accounts Committee report on recruitment and retention stated that
	70% of those intending to leave and 53% of those who had left said that their inability to plan ahead in life outside work was an important factor in their decision to leave.
	That is a direct result of overstretch. Service members are now deployed more, with less time in between deployments, which places a tremendous burden on service families who are left behind in the UK.
	After six years of intense fighting and overstretch, our military is nowhere close to being capable of meeting this Government's defence planning assumptions. The 1998 strategic defence review, which is 10 years old this year, is, for all intents and purposes, out of date. We need another strategic defence review.
	Since 1997, the percentage of total Government spending allocated to defence has fallen from 6.7 to 5.9 per cent. That is a drastic reduction, given that that period covers major operations in Kosovo, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq, but it reflects where defence comes in this Government's priorities. The first duty of Government is the defence and security of the British people. In using our armed forces personnel for that purpose, the Government have a responsibility and moral obligation to ensure that they are fully trained and fully equipped and that their families are adequately cared for. To date, this Government have failednot only part-time, but second rate.

Several hon. Members: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next speaker, I remind the House that Mr. Speaker has put a 10-minute limit on all Back-Bench speeches. That applies from now on.

Don Touhig: I join other right hon. and hon. Members in paying tribute to the professionalism and dedication of our armed forces, and in expressing support and admiration for those now serving on operations.
	In recent years, the demands that we have made of our armed forces have been great, but consistently, in spite of the most difficult circumstances and in the most dangerous operational theatres, those demands have been met. Our armed forces truly are the best in the world and they deserve only the best from us. It is our duty to show them that they are valued by the people of the country that they serve, by their Government and by their Parliament.
	At the same time, to ensure that our armed forces remain the best, we must not only recruit the best but retain the best. I know that that is easier said than done; recruitment and retention are major challenges in the private sector, as well as in the armed forces. In a strong economy such as ours, the competition for well trained, highly skilled people is fierce in every sector, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said. However, the nature of the work and the dangers that come with being a member of the British armed forces make that problem especially acute.
	Each year, we need about 20,000 new recruits to retain our operational capability, and I am encouraged by the figures that my right hon. Friend gave. In 2006-07, there were 19,790 new recruits, which is an improvement on previous years. That is a positive sign, but we need to do more to keep that level of recruitment, and to maintain the strength of our armed forces. Our success in recruiting personnel and retaining those in service is bound to be affected by how they are treated, and how they seem to be treated. My mission statement when I was a Defence Minister was simply this: we will value our servicemen and women and their families. We will value our reserves, our cadets and their families and employers, and our veterans and their widows and families, and we will do everything in our power to demonstrate that. We can begin to demonstrate that we value them by ensuring that they have the most attractive pay and benefits package in the jobs market.
	We must address the problem of the cultural drift that I sense between society and the armed forces. Fewer and fewer people have any idea of what it is like to serve in the armed forces, because fewer people know someone who is serving in the armed forces, or who has had military experience. That is why we must make sure that young people can have a taste of military life while they are at school. I welcome the pilot scheme to extend combined cadet forces to state schools.

Tony Baldry: The right hon. Gentleman gave great service as a Defence Minister; he was much respected for what he did. There is an unnecessary disconnect. Does he agree that the public response to the help for heroes appeal in national newspapers before Christmas was outstanding, but that the fact that the appeal was necessary shows why many people feel that the covenant has been broken? For want of a tiny amount of money, the Ministry of Defence gives itself a very bad public relations image. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to reflect on the fact that, although many people support our armed forces, they often get the impressionperhaps for the wrong reasonthat the Government are not doing so in the way that they could.

Don Touhig: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. The instinctive reaction of the British people is to support our armed forces. The point that I was trying to make is that there is a growing disconnect, because ever more people do not have knowledge or experience of people who serve in the armed forces, and that is not healthy.
	To return to the issue of combined cadet forces, the pilot scheme that has been rolled out moves us in the right direction. I hope that the scheme will be rolled out across Britain. That would allow us to enhance the education and training of young people in skills and trades that are often in short supply, while giving a head start to those who want to make a career in the armed forces. I should like more to be done; I would like a trust fund to be created specifically to support the development of the cadets services, to which private firms would be asked to contribute. The cadets do a wonderful job, creating all sorts of interesting and exciting developments in young people's lives.
	It is no bad thing to raise funds by helping to fill shopping bags in supermarkets at Christmas, but that is not a certain funding stream, and we should not encourage it to be viewed as such. We need to do more, and as the private sector has a strong interest in developing a skilled work force for the future, I expect that quite a number of companies would be willing to support such a trust fund. There is more that we can do to engage private companies in co-operation that would benefit both them and service personnel. We could set up partnerships with firms to ensure that when someone is coming to the end of their forces career they can contact a company that will guarantee them an interview, provided that they meet the basic requirements. After all, those with military experience bring a wide range of skills and abilities to civilian life that no one else can contribute to a business or organisation. Civil society and the armed forces have many shared interests that are often overlooked, and the Government must do more to strengthen co-operation in respect of those interests, for the benefit of all.
	A major factor in the recruitment and retention of our service personnel is housing. Measures such as the 700 million invested in forces accommodation last year, and the commitment to spend at least 5 billion on housing in the next decade, are certainly encouraging developments. However, our servicemen and women are no different from anyone else in society when it comes to wanting to get a foot on the housing ladder. Given the sacrifices that we expect from them, and the demands that we make of them, we should do all that we can to support servicemen and women in that ambition. We should look at ways of working with financial institutions, with a view to offering discounted mortgages, perhaps at a rate that is fixed at the time when the mortgage is taken out, and which applies for the duration of servicemen and women's time in the forces.
	Alternatively, as I have suggested in the past, we could offer service families a lump sum of, say, about 30,000 as a contribution towards a deposit on a mortgage. We could look at ways of developing a savings scheme in which someone could earn above commercial interest rates throughout their time in the forces, and the amount saved could be matched by a lump sum from the MOD when they leave. The money could then be used as a deposit on a house. We could engage financial institutions in exploring that.

Julian Brazier: I applaud the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion. Does he agree that the huge merit of that proposal is that it does not put service people early in their careers in a position where, having bought early because they so badly wanted to get on the housing ladder, they become more likely, according to the huge study that was done in the 1990s, to leave the forces prematurely?

Don Touhig: The hon. Gentleman makes an important and valid point. There is evidence that that has happened. I am trying to suggest ways in which we can stem that drift from the forces. Such measures would demonstrate loud and clear to servicemen and women that we value them, and would certainly have a significant impact on recruitment and retention. However, the most basic measure that would surely make the biggest difference to recruitment and retention is pay.
	I welcome the best public sector pay deal which our armed forces had last year. I welcome the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State when he says that the armed forces' salary growth has exceeded the whole economy in all but one of the past five years, but competition with private sector pay is a fight that we must stay in, or we will not retain our people in the armed forces. We could also look at introducing an increased tax allowance for members of the armed forces, or an income tax rebate for servicemen on active duty. That would be welcomed by those serving.
	We must do much to underpin our support for our veterans. They have made a tremendous contribution, and the way in which we treat them has an impact on recruitment and retention. If we can demonstrate our gratitude for their efforts in securing our freedom and protecting our interests, we are much more likely to encourage others to join the armed forces. I say to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench that it will surely impact very positively on recruitment and retention if we show people who have served in the armed forces that, as far as the Government are concerned, they remain part of the forces family for the rest of their lives.
	Again, I renew my call for the creation of a separate veterans departmenta department that would provide a stronger voice for veterans within the Government. It would act as a focal point for veterans issues, and send out a powerful message that help and support will always be available for ex-servicemen and their families as long as they need it. I hope that the Government will give serious consideration to these points and others that I know will be raised in the debate today.
	It is my hope that, by our words and deeds, we can go some way towards matching the commitment of the brave men and women of the British armed forces, who demonstrate their service to us day in, day out, and their service to their country. That would be the true covenant between the British people and our armed forces.

Willie Rennie: It is an honour to contribute to the debate today. I am in the place of my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey), who has to leave early for a long-standing constituency engagement. He apologises to the House, although I am sure that he is able to speak for himself.
	Today's debate follows a debate on the military covenant last month led by the Liberal Democrats. There were some excellent contributions to that debate. Then, like today, no Members from the Scottish National party were present. They claim to be a party of government who want to govern Scotland, but they seem to have little interest in the defence of the nation, as I am sure Members across the House would agree.
	I shall be vacating my position on the Defence Committee. Members of the Committee have entertained my serving as a spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats and as a member of the Committee at the same time, and I am grateful to them for that.  [Interruption.] I particularly enjoy the contributions from the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), who seems unable to keep quiet today. I thank the Chairman for his leadership of the Committee during that time. It has been an enjoyable experience. We have done some good work, as I hope the Secretary of State for Defence would agree. I shall be sad to leave the Committee.

James Arbuthnot: Without turning this into a mutual appreciation society, may I say that the Defence Committee will certainly miss the hon. Gentleman? His contribution has been outstanding.

Several hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Willie Rennie: I will leave the matter there for today.
	My main proposition is that we are asking too much from our armed forces. The strategic defence review in 1998 envisaged one major operation, such as Gulf 1, or a lesser deployment, such as Bosnia, or a small brigade-sized operation elsewhere. But since 2003 we have been operating on two major fronts, and, as we have heard today, that is leading to overstretch. We are breaching the harmony guidelines and have done so for the last seven years.
	The Army harmony guidelines clearly state that over a 30-month period people should not be away from their base for more than 415 days, but 10 per cent. of the Army are breaching those guidelinesthat is 10,000 personnel. What we do not know from the figures is whether there are repeat offenderswhether people breach the harmony guidelines over a number of years. Therefore, we do not know how many people have been affected in the longer term rather than just in the previous year. The medical services are suffering the worst. Among general surgeons, 21 per cent. are breaching the harmony guidelines.
	We have also seen huge shortages as a result of the breaching of the harmony guidelines. It is a vicious circle. When we ask too much of our armed forces they leave early, which results in shortages, which in turn leads to more overstretch and breaching of the harmony guidelines. We need to get a grip of that, because it results in the disillusionment of huge numbers of armed forces personnel. Ministry of Defence surveys showed that only three in 10 felt valued, and in one in four personnel morale was low or very low. As a result, more are leaving the forces, which results in retention difficulties. During the past year, 5,000 people have left the forces, and among officers the situation is particularly bad. In the last six months of 2007, 1,350 officers left the forces, which is double the figure for the previous 12 months. Since the start of the Iraq war in 2003, 6,000 officers have left the forces. As a result, we are 7,000 below strength in the armed forces as a whole.
	Over the Christmas period, I met a long-standing friend who has been in the forces for 10 years. He is a skilled tradesman and over the past few years he has been asked to go to Iraq and Afghanistan. Having just returned from Iraq, he has been asked to go back to Afghanistan, but he has decided that he has had enough, and many of his friends feel exactly the same because we are asking far too much of our forces. Hon. Members have heard me say before that we are now trawling around looking for volunteers, such as storemen from Faslane, bandsmen who are going out to Cyprus, and even politicians, including Members of the Scottish Parliament.

Tobias Ellwood: The hon. Gentleman mentions Faslane and he brings up an interesting point in Liberal Democrat policy. The fleet of submarines there are nuclear powered, and the Liberal Democrats seem to support the presence of naval personnel on those submarines, yet they are not keen to support nuclear energy on the ground. Why is it not good for the citizens of Britain to be near a nuclear power station, but it is okay for our naval personnel to be operating on a nuclear-powered submarine?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are debating armed forces personnel, and I would not want the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie) to be diverted too far from that topic.

Willie Rennie: You may be reassured, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that we will not be entertaining too much discussion on nuclear energy this afternoon. The hon. Gentleman wrongly conflates those two important issues. Serious considerations apply to both and to conflate the two is inappropriate.
	We are also asking too much of our reserve forces. Just before Christmas, I visited HMS Scotia in Rosyth for its Christmas carol concert; some of the Royal Naval Reserve forces are going out to Basra airbase to man Phalanx guns to protect it. Reserve forces members are now regularly being asked to go to the front line, but that was never envisaged when they first joined. It puts huge strain not only on them but on their employers and families. It is unsustainable to continue to ask the reserves to contribute too much to the front line.
	The real reason why we are at this state of play is due to the decision in 2003 to invade Iraq. The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) talked about overstretch, but in 2003 I do not remember him opposing the war in Iraq that has led to that overstretch.

Tobias Ellwood: I am testing the hon. Gentleman's patience, but I am pleased that he has given way because he is now, perhaps inadvertently, misleading the House. Our concern about Iraq relates to what has happened since the initial invasion and the management of the peacekeeping. That should not be confused with the initial invasion. We Conservatives are very concerned that the Army is still there in large numbers because the peacekeeping operation and nation building have been such a failure.

Willie Rennie: That is a slight extrapolation from what is the case. We are overstretched because we are in Iraq. In the 1998 strategic defence review it was envisaged that we would be able to operate only on one major front. The decision in 2003 led to two major frontsAfghanistan and Iraq. That is why we are in this situation today.

Tobias Ellwood: indicated dissent.

Willie Rennie: The hon. Gentleman is shaking his head, but that is the reality.

Tobias Ellwood: rose

Willie Rennie: I will give the hon. Gentleman one more chance.

Tobias Ellwood: I am afraid that, with respect, the hon. Gentleman is showing his ignorance about what the military are expected to do. They provide an umbrella of security, but the Department for International Development, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and other agencies need to build the governance and infrastructures. That has not happened in Iraq and that is why our military forces have been there for such a long time. I am afraid that they are now receiving the brunt because of the ineptitude of those Departments.

Willie Rennie: The hon. Gentleman is fabricating a rather contorted argument. We are in Iraq because the Conservatives and the Government agreed to go there. That is why we are overstretched. Making up some elongated story involving DFID and so on does not reflect the reality.
	I return to the issue of minimum force protection. When I visited Iraq last year with the rest of the Defence Committee, we were told that the minimum force protection required for the south-east would be 4,500 to 5,000. A month later, the Minister for the Armed Forces came before the Committee and said roughly the same. However, when last year the Prime Minister told the House that he had decided to withdraw 2,500 troops as of the spring, suddenly the minimum force required was 2,500. We have been told that the jobs required in Basra have changed. However, a minimum force is a minimum force, no matter what the jobs are.

Adam Holloway: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware of the spate of thefts from Basra airbase and associated issues involving the security of our personnel. I should be interested to hear, perhaps privately, from the Secretary of State what is being done to deal with that and whether it has anything to do with the fact that our force numbers may be too low even to guard the airbase.

Willie Rennie: The hon. Gentleman has made an interesting point, and I hope that the Secretary of State will deal with it, on a private basis.
	Ministers shook their heads when we talked about minimum force protection, but when we visited the airbase last year they were adamant that 4,500 was the minimum that would be required just for protection purposes, not to conduct many more operations beyond that. How has that figure suddenly changed to 2,500? Are we now relying on the Iraqi forces for our protection? If so, the House has a right to know. If not, we need a more detailed explanation as to the reason for the sudden reduction. It is clear that we have been part of the problem in southern Iraq and that we should withdraw from there. It used to be that 90 per cent. of attacks were on our forces in the south, but the number of attacks fell dramatically when we withdrew from Basra palace in the heart of Basra city. It is therefore clear that we should get out of Basra and out of Iraq altogether.
	I am grateful for the Secretary of State's details on some of the progress that has been made on inquests, but it is still embarrassing, and a travesty for the families, that it has taken far too long to conduct themmonths, sometimes years. So far, the system has been unable to cope. Will the Minister give a wee bit more detail about what further progress he hopes to make in the next year? Have discussions with the Scottish Government led to any results? If some of the inquests or fatal accident inquiries were conducted in Scotland, that would relieve some of the pressure in England.
	On housing, more than half of armed forces single living accommodation has been independently assessed as substandard. That is a significant reason for many officers and soldiers leaving the forces. The Armed Forces Pay Review Body has determined that 14,000 bed spaces have been lost since 2001, yet during that period 2.2 billion worth of asset sales has gone from the MOD to the Treasury. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for providing more details on the 5 billion figure, which has now grown to 8 billion or so. Unfortunately, however, some spinning went on previously as to what that money was. It was presented as new moneyextra investment in housingwhen in fact much of it was going on rent and maintenance. It would be helpful to have a wee bit more clarity on some of the figures as previously presented. As Ministers have said, the basic problem is that we are relying on the legacy that was left to us by the Conservative party, which sold off MOD housing to Annington Homesthe most disgraceful waste of money and resources that there has ever been. The Conservatives should say less on this subject in future because their record warrants some scrutiny.
	Progress has been made on health, as I have seen for myself through the Defence Committee. Defence Medical Services does a good job. The Selly Oak facility is first class, providing excellent, quality care for our armed forces in a military-led environment. I would like there to be a move further towards a military-only environment; I think the Minister said that more military nurses are being recruited.

Adam Holloway: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is a pity that the additional assistance and changes within Defence Medical Services seem to have come only when there has been a great big hoo-hah in the press, and not to have been driven by the Government? People working internally in this area say that that rather mystifies them.

Willie Rennie: I am sure that the Secretary of State, having gone through the agony of the past year, will be keen to make this investment sustainable, and that we will see long-term benefits.
	There are other improvements at Chilwell, Headley Court and the regional rehabilitation centres, but concerns remain about investment in Combat Stress. There has been some, but there needs to be more. There is also concern that the NHS will fund Combat Stress and veterans' health care after this period of investment. There must be improved connections between the NHS and the military, because the NHS does not understand many of the problems that the military face in terms of primary care.
	I understand that the Priory Group contract is coming up for renewal this year, and I would like the Government to consider whether the Priory Group is an appropriate body to provide health care for the armed forces, with regard to mental health. It is neither fish nor fowl. It is neither centralised nor military, but a regional, non-military environment. We have heard many times that serving soldiers need a military-only environment, but we need specialisms as well. I would like the Government to look at that area again and consider whether there is a better model that is both military and specialist.
	Finally, I would like to conclude with some questions for the Minister. If we are serious about recruitment and filling the shortfall of 7,000 personnel in the armed forces, why is there no Government budget line to recruit those personnel? I questioned the permanent under-secretary in the Select Committee on Defence last year, and there was silence when we asked whether there was a budget to recruit those masses of people. There is no serious intention of recruiting. The Department is being realistic; it does not expect to recruit them, and as a result there is no budget line. I would like to hear some response from the Minister on that when he sums up. Finally, will the Minister explain when he believes that the Government will withdraw from Iraq?

John Smith: I welcome this opportunity to take part in today's debate, although it is a brief one. I must say that I think it is too brief. The House should set aside much more time to discuss armed forces personnel.
	I intend to spend most of my contribution on a crucial aspect of personnel matters, which is the provision of first-class training, and I shall refer to the Government's radical and courageous policies that will transform the entire phase 2 training programme in the armed forces. I begin by paying tribute to the role of our armed forces personnel. I have the honour and privilege of representing the special forces support unit at MOD St. Athan, and I am fortunate enough to receive frequent updates on the activities of our brave men and women on the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan. Much more time should be spent exposing what our soldiers are doing every day of the weekthe sheer courage and bravery of the men and women on the front line.
	Far from what we hear constantly about bad morale and so on, in the correspondence and e-mails that I receive I hear only positive comments: a commitment to and belief in what they are doing, and a willingness and desire to succeed. I believe that the Government's record of looking after armed forces personnel is a good one. Do I think more could be done? You bet I do, but we have a reasonable track record. I do not base that on the facts and figures churned out by the Government, but on the comments I receive from my constituents who are serving on the front line.
	We heard references to medical services. I have an e-mail that points out that in the opinion of one commander, our medical services are second to none in the world. In fact, one of his platoon commanders was shot on the front line in Helmand, and after his condition was stabilised, he was receiving intensive care within 23 hours, not in theatre, but in Selly Oak in Birmingham. There are numerous examples of the sort of treatment that they are receivingit is the best in the world.
	We hear a lot about kit, and it is true that every commander in the field wants more kit. But the people who correspond with me say that the kit they have is the best it has ever been. Yes, they want more helicopters on the front line, but the kit is good, and it is improving. Let us not talk everything down.
	I want to focus on training, because I believe that it holds the key to many issues that are raised about armed forces personnel, especially recruitment and retention. If we can offer our servicemen and women the best possible phase 2technicaltraining in the world, we can recruit more easily and retain our forces better. In the Government's announcement on 17 January last year on the defence training rationalisation programme, it was decided to do just that and transform the phase 2 training of non-commissioned officers and lower ranks throughout the Army, Navy and Air Force. That modern, state-of-the-art training would use new teaching methodologies and all the technologies that are available to train and educate our forces personnel, and be provided in a purpose-built, new-build project on a 600-acre site in St. Athan in my constituency. Our servicemen and women deserve nothing less.
	The facilities will be outstanding and the training will be superb. I was pleased when my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary announced on 25 October that package 1the provision of all aeronautical engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering and computer information and technologywas on course and on time. It was also announced that negotiations would continue about package 2 and would probably be extended because the military were not sure whether they could achieve the savings that they expected by combining the two packages under the Metrix consortium.
	I was therefore interested when my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces made a written statement this week about the future of Deepcut barracks and the proposal to place the site in the local borough council's core planning strategy, with a view to vacating it by 2013. I hope that my right hon. Friend can tell me in his winding-up speech whether that will have any bearing on the decisions, which we know are due in the near future, on package 2 of the defence training rationalisation programme, given the relocation of such a large facility and given that not many places in the country can accommodate it. Of course, St. Athan can. It wasand will be againthe largest military base in the United Kingdom.
	The proposals as they stand will bring thousands of military personnel to my constituency. I was addressing a small community council in St. Athan, which will be directly affected, the other night. That small council is 120 per cent. behind the development and looking forward to welcoming the forces back to the constituency. At the height of activity in the camp, we had 17,000 military personnel at RAF St. Athan in the old days. We could approach such numbers in future if we make the right decision, combine the two packages and base the whole training programme on one site in the United Kingdom, which will offer young men and women a tremendous opportunity and a tremendous welcome to the armed forces.
	The majority will take up phase 2non-military trainingshortly after being recruited into the forces. It is an old trick that the Americans used much better than us in the past to give recruits the best facilities, involvement and quality of life, which they can use to build their career in the services andjust as importantgiven the new nature of the training, when they leave the forces, because the skills will be used directly in civvy street.
	However, we must get the project right. The infrastructure must be right because the project is so vast. Several aspects will be affected, but the most important are housing and transportationsurface access to the site, especially roads. I want to draw the Minister's attention to a difficulty. The local planning authority in the Vale of Glamorgan is to accommodate the 16 billion project, which will create 5,500 direct new civilian jobs in my constituency. It must work in co-operation with the Ministry of Defence and the company providing the project, Metrix.
	Unfortunately, the planning authority has failed in the draft local development plan that it published in December to recognise the scale of the project and the need to think strategically. The planning authority has not identified enough land banks for the new housing development. The pressure on housing will be enormous. The planning authority has also downgraded Llandow, another 500-acre former second world war airfielda brownfield siteand failed to identify it as an area for housing that could accommodate the people coming into St. Athan for the new development. I also understand that the planning authority has not safeguarded land for direct access to the military training academy at St. Athan from the M4, which has to be done.
	There is now a two-month consultation period, from January to March. I ask the Ministry of Defence to look into the issueit is the customer in the project, which is a private finance initiativeand to make representations to the local planning authority, to ensure that it recognises the strategic importance of the success of the project.

James Arbuthnot: I congratulate the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (John Smith) on two of the comments that he made. First, he said that this debate is too short. The new topical debates, which have turned out to be simple re-launches of the Government's current initiatives, do not seem to be a good idea, particularly when they take time out of armed forces debates, which tend to take place on Thursday afternoons. The second point on which I should like to congratulate the hon. Gentleman is the fact that his constituency will receive from Bordon in my constituency many people who work in mechanical engineering. He is lucky to have those people coming to his constituency. When they arrive, I hope to be invited to visit and see how they are getting along.
	This is a short debate. Last week the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust produced a report suggesting that the Ministry of Defence was glamorising war. I do not think that it is doing that at all. The Minister was absolutely right to suggest that it is not in the Ministry of Defence's interests to give, in any sense, a false idea of what people are going in for when they join the armed forces. However, it is also right to draw attention to the benefits of a career in the armed forces. In many respects, it is a fantastic career. One gets qualifications and finds a camaraderie that cannot be found in any other career. It is therefore right to pay tribute to the type of career that can be had in the armed forces, as well as to the extraordinary and wonderful men and women who take up that career.
	It is also right to pay tribute to the families of our armed forces. We often think of the armed forces as they serve in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in many cases the real difficulty is faced by those who are left behind at home doing the worrying, but without the constant adrenalin and local support that the work of the armed forces involves. All thatthe men and women of our armed forces, the careers that they provide and the quality that they generally produceis now a part of what it means to be British and is a matter of national pride.
	I should like to make another tiny point about national pride, part of which derives from military bands and the music that they play. They bring to an emotional head some of the strength of our military. I worry nowadays that our military bands are being reduced in number and that we have taken a financial approach to them, without appreciating the strength that they give to our armed forces. I hope, one of these days, to be able to persuade the Defence Select Committee to carry out an inquiry into our military bands because they are so important.
	My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State referred to overstretch and the Secretary of State referred to stretch: it does not really matter which word is used, because the reality is what mattersand the reality is as follows. On the planning assumptions, our armed forces have now been operating above the levels for which they are resourced for seven of the last eight yearsfor every year since 2002. It is utterly unacceptable that that has gone on for so long. We can manage that sort of problem for a year or twoperhaps for a year or threebut continuing with it for so long is unacceptable. The Chief of the General Staff has said that
	we now have almost no capability to react to the unexpected.
	That is also unacceptable.
	The Ministry of Defence has a targetpublic service agreement target 3to
	generate forces, which can be deployed, sustained and recovered at the scales of effort required to meet the Government's strategic objectives.
	That is not at all surprising, one would think. It seems a perfectly ordinary test; it is, actually, a crucial test for the armed forces of this country and of any country. However, according to the MOD in its most recent quarterly report:
	Owing to the continuing high level of operational commitment, we do not now expect to reach the target level by April 2008.
	It will therefore not be able to generate the forces that can be
	deployed, sustained and recovered at the scales of effort required to meet the Government's strategic objectives.
	That is deeply worrying.
	Reductions in the commitments to Iraq and the Balkans are welcome in that regard. Some people expect us to be completely out of Iraq soon. I have to warn the Secretary of State that the Defence Committee had a meeting this morning with the United States House Armed Services Committee, which made it plain that for the US to remain in Iraq without substantial support from its closest friend, the UK, would not be well understood or received in America. We need to take that into account.
	What of the harmony guidelines? The Army's guidelines have been mentioned, but the RAF guidelines say:
	Unit Tour Intervals should be no less than 16 months.
	However, that is routinely breached. RAF regiment field squadrons have an average tour interval of around 10 and a half months.
	We met the Chinook crews, who are based at Odiham in my constituency, when we were in Afghanistan last year. They are flying all hours of the day and nightthank God, because of the critical work they do in support of our armed forces. Their tours are long, they get little time to rest, and they are flying in the most difficult conditions imaginable. Landing a Chinook in the dust of Afghanistan is a highly skilled task. People cannot see the ground because of the dust blowing up. At night, it is even harder, and people are probably being shot at, after having very little sleep. Luckily, our crews are the best in the business. They manage to cope with all that, but we must never take them for granted. We sent them there; they are doing all this for us. We must treat them right, pay them well, house them well, educate their children well, provide proper medical care and give them the very deep respect that they fully deserve.
	I pay tribute to the Defence Select Committee, whose members work extremely hard at what they do. In recent months, we have completed reports on the defence education service, which is doing a good job in circumstances of great turbulence. On housing, we drew attention to our worry that it will take so long to get the standard of all defence housing up to an acceptable level. The Secretary of State made some perfectly fair points about that today. We are just concluding our inquiry on Defence Medical Services. Of course, we have some concerns. For example, there is a severe shortfall in some specific specialties, but we have found much in the Defence Medical Services that is excellent.
	My final point concerns visits to our armed forces deployed abroad. The Secretary of State often visits them, as do other Defence Ministers, and I think that as a result they have a good understanding of the experiences that our forces are undergoing. The same cannot be said of the Ministers who make the financial decisionsthe Ministers in the Treasury. I welcomed the Prime Minister's recent visits to our troops, but while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer such visits were rare.
	I hope that Treasury Ministers will arrange a programme of visits. If they do, they will be impressed. They will see a group of wonderful young men and women upholding the values of Britain, standing up for our interests and putting their lives on the line for us. When those Treasury Ministers see what is really going on, they will have a changed perspective when they return to the United Kingdom to negotiate with the MOD; and the MOD, our armed forces and our country will benefit accordingly.

David Kidney: I want to touch on three Stafford experiences in my brief speech, and to draw from each of them a point of national significance.
	Last year, the status of the military base at Stafford as RAF Stafford ended 59 years after it was established, and most of the uniformed personnel were moved to Wittering. In the run-up to those events, it looked very much as though the entire military presence in Stafford could come to an end, but as a result of the great public support for the military in Stafford and the constructive approach taken by me and by the local community in representations to Ministers about that how could be averted, the story today is entirely different. There is a very positive future for an Army-led base at Staffordnow MOD Staffordand the Beacon barracks for the 22nd Signal Regiment, and the prospect of a secure and growing future as we give further consideration to the super-garrison approach to the basing of our military personnel.
	That brings me to the first of my points of national significance. I should like to know Ministers' thinking on super-garrisons. As I understand it, their development will coincide with, but is not dependent on, the return home from Germany of large numbers of our personnel, itself a significant event in the coming five years or so. Does the Minister agree that it will give components of our armed forces that will eventually be deployed and fight together an opportunity to train together as well, and to be deployed to the same places at the same times? Does he agree that of wider benefit to our military and their families is the fact that with super-garrisons will come greater stability in their home lives? They will know about the schools that their children will be able to attend, and it will be possible for them to buy homes in the area if they wish to do so.
	This may not be so much a point in favour of super-garrisons, but I think it could be described as a point of national significance. I mentioned the survival and future prosperity of Stafford's military base. The Minister at the time, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr. Ingram), was extremely receptive to my arguments and those of a delegation that I took to see him several times. I want to record my grateful thanks to him for listening and for making a difference through the decisions that he made.
	Let me give an example. At an early stage in the process, at a meeting at which I put the case to my right hon. Friend with a delegation from the Stafford community, we were faced with the prospect of 800 civilians losing their distribution and storage jobs at Stafford. My right hon. Friend decided to start early, along with the MOD's human resources personnel and Jobcentre Plus, on the objective of guaranteeing people new jobs or help with finding jobs outside the civil service. If there are people with a low opinion of the MOD's HR personnel, I ask them to reconsider. My impression was of a dedicated group of people making a very effective job of what was a very difficult exercise, with the result that of the 800 people who were to lose posts at Stafford, only two were made compulsorily redundant. I consider that an impressive performance.
	My second experience involved the contribution of the civil servants at Stafford to Operation Telic back in 2003. I attended a very sad occasion in December 2007, when we marked the end of their work at Stafford's base, but back in 2003 I saw with my own eyes the dedication of those people, working seven days a week on a short time scale to make sure that all the equipment the troops needed in Iraq got to Iraq in time for the start of the military action there. Although there were stories about lack of equipment in the right place at the right timethe most tragic event that we can all recall was that of Sergeant Steven Roberts, who gave up his body armour and was then shot and diedthe subsequent National Audit Office report gave absolute credit to the people back in Stafford and around the UK for their part in getting the equipment there. The report spoke about twice the material getting to the region in half the time compared with the 1990 Gulf war; so the fault in people not getting equipment such as body armour and the right sized boots at the right time did not lie with people in Stafford. I recall that the NAO drew attention not only to the shortage of time for the whole operation because of the diplomatic efforts at the United Nationssomething that might now be a constant pressure given the commitment to a vote in this House before committing troops in futurebut to our country's policy in terms of what we keep in store ready for such an eventuality and what we depend upon quick procurement for. That balance must be got right, and we must have robust procurement arrangements for the equipment that will be procured at short notice.
	Another important issue that I want the Minister to say something about is the tracking of equipment in theatre and ensuring it gets to the right place in the battle theatre in time. A lot of work was done immediately after the NAO report on in-theatre tracking, and I wonder whether he can say anything new today about developments in technological solutions as well as in military training and practice.

Tony Baldry: The hon. Gentleman and I share, as it were, distribution depots, and it is sometimes forgotten just how many civilian staff work with great credit for the Ministry of Defence and that they have also been going through a period of turmoil. The demands placed on them from managing what are two large operations are phenomenal, and we should never forget the contribution of civilian staff in the MOD.

David Kidney: I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I pay tribute to those staff for their dedication to their duty and the pride that they feelit is every bit as much as that of the uniformed armed forcesin serving their country.
	The ultimate sacrifice that members of our armed forces make to this country is to give their lives. Back in 2003, we in Stafford had the experience of the death of young, brave Trooper David Clarke. We quickly knewand this was confirmed at the inquestthat he was killed when his Challenger 2 tank was fired on by another British Challenger 2 tank. The point of national significance that I draw from that incident is the vital question of combat identification, and I have pursued that with Ministers in the years since 2003. Can the Minister say anything new about the work being done on that? As we deploy increasingly often with many international partners, it is important that we have approaches and solutions that are compatible with those of our partners. New technologies assist to some extent, but there is always the issue of human factors. Time and again, training and communication are what make the difference. I have talked of the tragic loss for Stafford of the loss of David Clarke's life, but it is important that we learn the lessons of each individual incident.
	We in this country can be proud that we have some of the bestand sometimes the bestarmed forces in the world. That is because of a combination of their personal courage and commitment, the leadership that they have, the training and equipment that they get and the backing of our nation. I want to say how proud I am of our armed forces for what they do so often on our behalf and at our request. They serve the country superbly, and I admire the values that they hold and uphold. As a country, our support for them during their service, for their families, and when they are veterans is growing all the time. Long may that continue.

John Baron: The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) made a number of interesting points, particularly those relating to super-garrisons. I hope that the Minister will at least investigate that matter further.
	I welcome this debate. It does not take me to suggest that Parliament has a special duty to look after service personnel and to honour the military covenant. That duty is born of the fact that Parliament, on behalf of the nation, has a moral duty to repay the dedication shown by our service personnel. In addition, because politicians ultimately decide on deployment, and as there is an absence of a union or any other representative organisation, Parliament has a direct role to play in the welfare of our service personnel. Despite that special duty, there is mounting evidence to suggest that this Government risk failing our service personnel.
	Poor housing is perhaps a key example of that. Various statistics have been bandied about in this short debate. We have heard about the Public Accounts Committee's suggestion that nearly half of all service accommodation is substandard. I think I am right in saying that a Select Committee on Defence report suggested that some accommodation was appalling. The Army's own continuous attitude surveys suggest that half our troops believe that the maintenance of their accommodation is not what it should be, and senior figures have added their voice on this matter. General Sir Michael Rose has said:
	The situation has become so extreme that it is driving soldiers out of the Army in increasing numbers.
	It seems to me that the Government have forgotten the old first world war concept of homes for heroes when it comes to our troops. In fairness, their single living accommodation modernisationSLAMinitiative has resulted in some additional funding, but the Public Accounts Committee made it clear that even at the current rate of improvement it would take 20 years for all the accommodation to be removed from the substandard category.
	As if to illustrate the point, I raised the issue of the accommodation at the Hounslow cavalry barracks with the Defence Secretary. The 2nd battalion of my regiment, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, will be returning there from overseas deployment in the spring. The Minister will be aware that that accommodation was condemned in the 1960s, and that it has a reputation in the armed forces of being probably the worst accommodation. Most of the troops' accommodation will be about 250 ft below the Heathrow flight path. The senior non-commissioned officers' accommodation is the worst of allthe rooms are so narrow and small that one must close one's door before one can open one's locker. I welcome the Defence Secretary's apparent acceptance of an invitation to visit the Hounslow cavalry barracks, because they are worthy of a visit. Although funds are being put into those barracks, by most accounts they are insufficient to deal with the deficiencies.

Kevan Jones: The hon. Gentleman made reference to the Defence Committee's report on housing. We visited Hounslow barracks, and I sympathise with some of the points that he is making. Did he also read the report's recommendations? They clearly stateI also said this earlierthat the answer to the appalling conditions at Hounslow is not just pumping money into that facility. The Ministry of Defence and, in particular, the Army, must take a strategic decision about what is needed in the capital area.

John Baron: I do not disagree with that, but part of the problem has been the constraint on finances.

Kevan Jones: indicated dissent.

John Baron: Yes it has. Spending on the military has fallen from 2.9 to 2.5 per cent. of our gross domestic product [Interruption.] I am not wrong. It has fallen by that amount during the past 10 years. That may not sound like a big percentage but it represents 5 billion in today's money, which could put right a lot of what is wrong in the armed forces, certainly when it comes to service accommodation.
	That leads me to the point about overstretch. I agree that many terms are used with regard to the concept of overstretch. The bottom line is that the armed forces receive about 5 billion less because of that decrease in spending as a percentage of GDP. That 0.4 per cent. drop in expenditure does not sound a lot, but that money would put right the Army's 4,000 personnel deficit: it does not sound a lot, but it has a big knock-on effect on deployment. When the Chief of the General Staff visited Parliament and made a presentationif I remember correctly, the Minister was therehe said that the time spent on deployment was normally around 20 per cent. of total time. At the moment, the Army is running at 37 per cent. and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) pointed out, that over-deployment has been going on since 2002. The Chief of the General Staff made the point that that cannot continue indefinitely and we are reaching breaking point.
	Most recent figures show that most Army units now fail to meet the 24-month average interval between tours. That leaves units and individuals separated from their families for far too long, and training and recuperation inevitably suffer.
	We must also ensure that we supply our troops with the right equipment. Troops returning from theatre tell of life-threatening shortages of kit, including body armour, satellite phones, oil to prevent guns jamming and electronic equipment to detect roadside bombs
	[ Interruption.] I shall move on.
	I should warn the Minister that the public take those failings very seriously. It is no credit to the Government that the Minister for Defence Equipment and Support announced that he was walking away from politics to drive racing cars on the very day that a coroner ruled that a shortage of kit cost Fusilier Gordon Gentle his life. That is not lost on the public.
	The Defence Committee has highlighted the shortage of helicopters in Afghanistan, and that is especially important in that region, because it has a knock-on effect in the strain put on crews, especially when they have to land in the conditions there at night. It also has an impact on our successes on the ground. One of my concerns about Afghanistan is that many of the victories that we are accomplishing now could become pyrrhic victories if we do not dominate the ground that we have won. It is no good taking towns if we cannot dominate the ground around them, and helicopters have a vital role to play in achieving that. If we eventually cede that ground to the Taliban, the victories will indeed be pyrrhic.
	I welcome the rule changes to compensation claims, and I give the Government credit where it is due for those. It is right that service personnel can now claim for each injury. However, I would ask the Minister to address directly why the limit on compensation remains at 285,000, and will the Government and MOD do any work on that? To put the figure into context, Peterborough borough council spends some 285,000 on awarding compensation to those who trip over paving stones, and that is a useful comparison.
	Given the litany of failings by the Government, I have to say, as an ex-serviceman, that it is bemusing to hear Ministers say that when they are visiting troops, they do not hear them grumble too much, so perhaps Opposition Members and the media exaggerate some of the concerns. That is the wrong approach. Partly because service personnel are taught not to complain, and partly because of their deference to the chain of command, they do not grumble. It is ludicrous to suggest that because nothing is said, all is well. It shows how out of touch Ministers risk appearing.

Eric Joyce: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, as I realise that we are near the end of his allotted time. Does he see how what he has just said contrasts with what the former Chiefs of the Defence Staff in the other place say? When they visit troops, all they hear is grumbling.

John Baron: I am not sure that I heard the last part of that question.

Tobias Ellwood: It did not make sense, so don't worry.

John Baron: I am not sure that the question made sense, but the bottom line is that Ministers are saying too often that they do not hear complaints when they visit troops. That is nonsense. As I have seen comrades pay the ultimate price on operation, it galls me when Ministers seem incapable of understanding the nature and substance of the armed forces commitment.
	Service personnel will give 100 per cent. to their country. They will suffer conditions on the front line that some in this place would not believe in this world of human rights. They will not grumble; the British Tommy gets on with the job. That is why it is so important that Ministers listen to those at the top when they break silence. Lord Guthrie has talked about the services feeling as though they are being taken for granted. Admiral Lord Boyce accused the Prime Minister of treating the armed forces with contempt and disinterest. The Chief of the General Staff clearly said that the military covenant is out of kilter and that the troops are feeling devalued, angry and fatigued.
	Let us be clear that it is regrettable when senior officers and retired senior officers think it necessary to speak out. It is not the way we do things in this country. However, it shows the scale of the problem. Those people are not seeking publicity. They are speaking out for those who do not have a union or a federation to speak out on their behalf and who will not and cannot strike. They are making the Government aware of problems as best they can, because Ministers will not listen in private. In many soldiers' minds, the proof that the Government are not 100 per cent. committed to their interests is the part-time Secretary of State. Those on the Government Front Bench do not understand the strength of feeling. The wrong message is sent out.
	Troops give 100 per cent. and expect 100 per cent. in return. The Defence Secretary has openly asked what more he should be doing, and enough has been said this afternoon to illustrate what needs be done and the issues that need to be dealt with: substandard housing, the fact that the Army is overstretched and the shortage of kit.
	In conclusion, the fact that the Royal British Legion has felt obliged to mount a campaign about the military covenant along the lines of We count on him; can they count on us? illustrates the state of affairs. The Army is being asked to do too much with too few men and resources. The Secretary of State has admitted that the Government can do better. Let us hope that now is the time for action.

Kevan Jones: I have had the privilege of serving on the Select Committee on Defence for the past six years. I have seen men and women in our armed forces not only in this country but in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world. I want to put on record my respect for them. The armed forces offer rewarding careers, mentioned by the Chairman of the Defence Committee, to many people who would not get such chances elsewhere. A lot of those people, at very tender ages, take on a huge amount of responsibility. If anybody wants some reinforcement in response to people who write off the youth of today, they should meet some of the young men and women in our armed forces.
	I am pleased that armed forces personnel, their families and how we treat members of our armed forces are high on the political agenda. The only thing that I ask is that the debate should be based on fact rather than fiction. The trend over the past few months in the media and in the Housean example was provided just now by the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron)is that if someone says something, it is deemed to be a fact. If someone stands up, for example, and says that there is a shortage of body armour in Iraq or Afghanistan, that is taken as a fact. Some of the problems in our armed forces are seen as having been pickled in aspic and it is believed that somehow nothing ever changes.
	There has been a tremendous change in the equipment available in Afghanistan and Iraq. I have seen that, as have other members of the Defence Committee. If the hon. Member for Billericay thinks that members of the armed forces do not grumble to us when we go around bases, that could not be further from the truth. To be fair to the Chairman of the Committee, he insists that wherever we go, we should meet members of the armed forces away from senior officers. I can tell the House that they are not short of a range of issues and grumbles to raise. One must be selective, as some grumbles deserve to be taken up while others are the sort of moans expressed by people in any job. It is important to separate what needs to be investigated from ordinary, everyday dissatisfaction.

John Baron: I said that I had heard Ministers say at the Dispatch Box that they do not hear grumbling from armed forces personnel, but I was not referring to members of the Defence Committee. Moreover, my remarks were not based on hearsay. I have looked at what the Public Accounts Committee has said about accommodation, for example, and at the Army's own continuous assessment surveys.

Kevan Jones: I shall come on to accommodation in a moment, but I assure the House that armed forces personnel are not afraid of coming forward.
	I welcome the commitment given by the Government to the Command Paper, as it is very important that all the threads to do with housing, medical welfare and other matters are drawn together. Another important aspect is how the MOD interacts with other Departments. The Defence Committee has worked on reports dealing with housing, education and medical services, and it is clear that the MOD is something of an island. It does not always work well with other Departments, and the Command Paper will have an important role to play in improving its performance in that respect.
	The Command Paper also needs to spell out what should be provided by the MOD, and what by charities. I have great respect for the service charities, which do tremendous work on behalf of both serving and retired members of our armed forces. We need a grown-up debate so that we can decide what they should provide, and what the MOD should.
	On the armed forces medical services, the Chairman of the Defence Committee said that we had been very impressed by what we had seen on our evidence-gathering trips, and I want to emphasise that the care being given to personnelboth in-theatre in Afghanistan and Iraq and at Selly Oakis the best in this country and among the best in the world. That was recognised by the Surgeon General in the evidence that he gave to the Defence Committee, and it also accepted by General Dannett, who is a strong advocate of the Selly Oak facility. People need to look at the facts, and not at the media hype or some of the other, rather disgraceful claims that have been made.
	I have been impressed by the dedication exhibited by both NHS and military staff in the hospitals that I have visited, but I went to the military-managed facility at Northallerton a few weeks ago. The previous Conservative Government quite rightly began the process of closing military hospitals: six were closed during their time in office, and anyone who suggests that we should return to that regime is talking nonsense. A proper throughput of people and expertise is needed if medical care is to attain the necessary standard.

Tony Baldry: The hon. Gentleman has said that there must be a balance between the work done by charities and the MOD. Does he agree that the MOD could surely have found in its budget the 5 million for a hydrotherapy pool and other facilities needed by the seriously wounded people in therapy and recuperation at Headley Court? That is a tiny amount, and it should have come from the MOD's budget and not from charities.

Kevan Jones: I am sorry to say that the hon. Gentleman has fallen into a trap. When the Defence Committee visited Headley Court to gather evidence, people told us that the facilities to which he has referred were not the priority. It is fine if charities want to install a hydrotherapy pool as an addition to existing provision, but it is certainly not a priority for patients. We need to be careful about such matters, but that is why we need a debate about what the MOD should provide, and what charities should. Service charities have an important role to play, and they can provide some services for our armed forces far better than the Government can.
	We cannot ignore the legacy of the previous Conservative Government or the way that they sold off Army houses but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) suggested, we also have a great opportunity in that regard. The replacement of the arms plot and super-garrisons allows us for the first time to talk about letting armed forces personnel get on the housing ladder. I am very pleased that the Government have taken that on board. I am also pleased that they have accepted the amendment to the Housing and Regeneration Bill that provides that people leaving the armed forces and returning to their home area will get priority for council housing.
	The hon. Member for Billericay talked about Hounslow. The problem there is not money; it is that a strategic decision is needed on what accommodation the Army needs in London. As we highlighted in our report, that urgently needs to be assessed. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the facilities in Hounslow are unacceptable, but no one would put money into a facility that might be closed a few years later. That indecision has led to the decline of the barracks.
	Strides have been made in relation to military inquests, but I put it to my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces that he should urge the Government to introduce the coroners Bill. That would remedy some of the delays and archaic systems operating in the coroners service, which would also help some military inquests. I am totally against feeding lawyers and giving them more money to represent families at inquests, because there is no role for the families there, but I would insist on the maximum support being given to families who attend inquests.
	We have heard about the voice that armed forces personnel can have, which in the new media age is increasingly heard on the internet and in other forums where they can comment. I proposed adding to the Bill that became the Armed Forces Act 2006 a new clause that would have given legal recognition to an armed forces federation. I believe that an armed forces federation is long overdue in this countrynot a trade union that would represent armed forces personnel, allow them to go on strike or do anything like that, but a body that would provide a voice for ordinary servicemen and women in the chain of command. I am not for one minute saying that such a body should be able to interfere in the chain of command; however, there is a problem with how far up the chain of command some of the legitimate complaints made by members of the armed forces have gone. Do they reach senior generals and Ministers? Such a federation would be important.
	Finally, we should honour the men and women who have been injured or killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq and in other conflicts around the world. I pay tribute to the  Daily Mirror for its Honour The Brave campaign and to Colonel Richard Kemp, who is leading the fight for a medal. The Secretary of State says it is up to the generals to decide on the awarding of medals, but such a medal, which is commonplace in other countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia, is long overdue in this country. A medal should be awarded to men and women who lose their lives or are injured in service of their country. Two hundred and six Members of Parliament have now signed my early-day motion 95, and I urge any who have not to do so. I see that only a minority of Conservative MPs have signed it; again, I urge them to do so. We need some movement on the medal, because those people deserve such recognition.
	I finish where I started by saying that we owe a great debt to the servicemen and women who are working on our behalf. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford, I wish to mention the civilian personnel who work for the MOD, some of them in very dangerous parts of the world in support of the armed forces. They, too, should have our thanks for the work that they do on our behalf.

Several hon. Members: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not want to slash the time limit on Back-Bench speeches, but only 26 minutes are left and five hon. Members still wish to speak. A degree of restraint on the part of hon. Members will help their colleagues.

Tobias Ellwood: I will try to adhere to your recommendation, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), who made some important comments, particularly on the subject of inquests. It is bizarre that under our system, wherever the Hercules or C-17 lands, that is where the inquest has to take place. I encourage the powers that be to ensure that a Bill is expedited, so that we can remove that quirk in the system.
	In this debate on armed forces personnel we have heard a lot about cuts to the size of our forces and reductions in budgets that have led to overstretch, and to pressures on members of our armed forces across the board. As we have heard, that has certainly led to challenges for recruitment and, more worryingly, for retention. Since 1997, the Army has been reduced by 9,000 people, the Navy by 10,000 and the RAF by 16,000. Those are colossal numbers, considering the expectations and burdens that we put on our armed forces personnel across the world.
	I shall focus my attention on two issues. The first is the aftercare provided to service personnel once they have left the armed forces. We have rightly covered a range of issues, including welfare, equipment, and frequency of tours. Those are all important, but we have to remember what happens to a soldier when they have picked up their armed forces long service and good conduct medal after 16 years, or when they have taken an honourable decommission, and decided to go to civvy street. I pay tribute to the Royal British Legion and many of the veterans' associations that look after our heroes once they have decided to take a role in civilian life. They play an important role, providing reunion opportunities, support, and the mechanisms and facilities that are needed to ensure that armed forces personnel make a healthy, informed transition from a military to a civilian environment.
	After the 25th anniversary of the Falklands conflict, it was horrifying to learn that more than 300 veterans of that conflict had committed suicide since returninga statistic that will shock the House. That is more than were killed in action on the islands. It is an unacceptable figure. One would think that things would have changed, but a recent report in the  British Medical Journal highlights some of the psychological disorders and concerns that affect Army personnel, particularly those who are in combat situations for a total of more than 13 months. They include post-traumatic stress disorder, psychological distress, multiple physical symptoms, and symptoms connected with alcohol problems.
	I appreciate that much has changed since the 1980s and the Falklands conflict, but I was horrified to learn, in response to a written question that I asked the Defence Secretary, that 17 serving soldiers who served either in Iraq or Afghanistan have committed suicide. We are talking about Army personnel who were still in uniform. They had not even left the protection of the military family, but decided to take their own lives. I would hazard a guess that the total number of people who have committed suicide having served in those two areas of conflict is double that figure, because there are those who were not receiving the attention and security that the military environment can offer. I do not know the numbers, and I seriously urge the Minister to investigate and try to find out the number of suicides among those who served in those conflicts but who left and were civilians.
	I am afraid that the US does not fare any better: 99 American soldiers have killed themselves since 2006. That is the highest suicide rate in 26 years. We have not touched on that issue before, and I hope that the Minister will heed our concerns. We have a duty of care, which I do not believe we are fulfilling. We have a responsibility that goes far beyond the battlefields and parade squares, and we have an obligation to look after our heroes long after they have hung up their uniforms.
	My second theme is the changing role of our military. We had a little engagement on that subject with the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie), the Liberal Democrat spokesman. It was interesting to hear the Foreign Secretary's recent comments on the Today programme, in which he promised to prioritise the Government's work on conflict prevention, and to work better with the armed forces. That is the stance of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Foreign Secretary also pledged greater integration and better co-operation with the Department for International Development.
	I agreed with those sentiments, but I shall not hold my breath. I agreed with the comments of Sir Hilary Synnott, who is a respected commentator on Iraq. He has worked in the civil service and written and travelled extensively throughout Afghanistan and Iraq. He said:
	We shall not be holding our breaths. We have heard the like before. The imbalance of effort, of outlay of blood and treasure, between the military and the civilian arms of government has brought shame upon the Government.
	Those are harsh words from somebody so respected and so knowledgeable about such matters.
	I shall touch on our concerns. We had a statement from the Liberal Democrats pointing out that our military are still in Iraq, and I am sure they would say the same about Afghanistan. We should be more concerned about what happens underneath that umbrella of security. The only reason why our military personnel are in those two operational environments is that we have not been able to achieve the level of infrastructure and improvements to those countries that would allow the military to move from a war fighting capacity to a peacekeeping one. That is because we do not have a proper co-ordinated plan in either of those environments.
	I visit Afghanistan frequently and I was in Iraq not long ago. In both cases, we went in not understanding what was expected of DFID and of the FCO. The only expectation was that our military were to go in and somehow kill the bad guys and make the place safe. Let us suppose that that happened, and that in Helmand province we reached an agreement with the Taliban that was put in place. We would then have to start infrastructure-building from scratch. It is not the military who do that. It should be done by a combination of DFID and the FCO with the United Nations and the European Union. That is not happening in any part of Afghanistan on the scale that it should.
	That is the concern, and it applies to Iraq as well. There are conflicts in Basra between the Mahdi army and the other groups, and the only thing that links them is their hatred of the British, who are seen as hostile because we are no longer liberators but occupiers. That is a horrible thing to say about our British forces and the good work that they do [Interruption.] I hear barracking from the Government Benches. Does the hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Joyce) wish to intervene?

Eric Joyce: I have not heard the hon. Gentleman mention armed services personnel for the past five minutes of what is now an eight-minute speech.

Tobias Ellwood: Another bizarre intervention from the hon. Gentleman. Does he not understand that the reason why we are facing pressures on the budget and why people are leaving in droves is the work that they are expected to do? The reason why the work is so tough is that the people who are supposed to be working next door to themDFID and the FCOare not able to conclude their jobs in time.
	When we go into a country, there is a small window of opportunity to win over hearts and minds, and we are failing miserably to do that. That is why five years after we went into Iraq and six years after we went into Afghanistan, we still cannot walk away with pride and say, We are leaving a country that we can be proud of. Those are the challenges that we face and the problems that everyone in the armed forces is complaining about. Any soldier or sailor I spoke to during my visit to Iraq had little to say about the rest of the civil service. They were frustrated in their work. They were trying to provide an element of security and they did not feel that their efforts were being matched.
	I should be careful about what I say because individual members of those Departments work very hard, but the lack of leadership and co-ordination leads me to believe that it is time to review the work of the MOD, the FCO and DFID and create something new. DFID has passed its sell-by date in its nation-building work. We are doing a disservice to our armed forces and the personnel who operate and wear the uniform with such pride, because we are putting them in harm's way. They are creating a level of security and we are not taking advantage of it.
	This has been a fruitful debate. Our armed forces deserve so much more, and until there is better co-ordination, armed forces personnel will feel frustrated with the work that they try to perform.

Eric Joyce: I listened carefully to what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence had to say about the personnel Command Paper, and it put in my mind the importance of advocacy. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) referred to his attempt to gain some recognition for the British Armed Forces Federation, an interesting subject that provided food for thought. There is often debate around whether a union is or is not applicable, and most hon. Members on both sides of the House agree that a union in its conventional format would not apply to the armed services. Interestingly, however, the legal position with the armed services as I understand it would be that, although service personnel could join a trade union, they simply could not be represented in the conventional way, and there is no move by the trade unions to take on that role.
	Nevertheless, that raises the important issue of who advocates and how that advocacy is done. The personnel Command Paper and other such matters give us the opportunity in the House to comment and organisations outside to make their presence known. I have read much that the British Armed Forces Federation has sent out and I have looked at its website. It seems to have many sensible things to say, and perhaps that is the way in which it can contribute.
	There has been some advocacy recently, apparently on the part of service personnel, but I do not particularly agree with the style of what has been said. It has been done from the other House by former Chiefs of the Defence Staff. I have looked through the last 50 interventions and speeches made by Lords Inge, Guthrie and Boyce, but I have not seen a single reference to their own commercial interestsdirectorships in various companies. They are companies of particular note, for which I have considerable respect. I do not see the need to mention them again here, although I have mentioned the matter to the companies concerned.
	If those senior and experienced former officers want to make their interventions, the least that they can do is have the same standards that are required by this House. Sadly, we are not at liberty to make a complaint to the other place. We can write to the Lords Speaker, but we cannot instigate any kind of inquiry; it must be done there, so they are beyond reproach in that sense. However, it behoves us to put qualifying parameters around what these former senior officers say. They may technically be serving officers; I think that Lord Inge may still be a serving officer on half pay as a retired five-star officer.
	It is important when we hear advocacy deployed by people in this House or next door in the other place to understand what other interests they may haveparticularly if they have considerable pecuniary interests, as Lord Inge and Lord Boyce especially have in the defence industry, but choose not to declare them. We have heard from the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) how those Members of the other House choose not to court publicity, but I cannot imagine anything further from the truth. More recently, they have been making intervention after intervention in public debate, courting publicity where they can. That does not serve debate or advocacy on the part of armed services personnel particularly well.
	Others wish to speak, so I simply conclude by saying that there is plenty of room for advocacy. The Government have made it clear that the personnel Command Paper that is coming up is a perfect opportunity. I shall certainly be making a contribution and I urge hon. Members to help others outside this place who want to make contributions, while being wary of possible unstated vested interests.

Several hon. Members: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Just two hon. Members wish to speak. The winding-up speeches will start at 5.35 pm and I leave it to them to see how it can be arranged.

Bob Russell: I pay tribute to members of Her Majesty's armed forces. In particular, I mention 16 Air Assault Brigade from the Colchester garrison, who in the course of this year will be deployed to Afghanistan. We wish them Godspeed and a safe return.
	I shall confine my remarks to two narrow areas of personnel. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) who, through parliamentary questions, has elicited the fact that half of the country's single service personnel accommodation is substandard. I will balance that by saying that the new Merville barracks in Colchester provide the best possible accommodation, and that is the yardstick for which we should strive for all single military accommodation in a much shorter time frame than is currently envisaged, with only 38,000 rooms, apparently, achieving a top rating. I was not so happy to learn that almost 9,000 families remain stuck in grade 4 homes and another 387 are in accommodation so poor that it does not even reach the lowest official grading.
	I am bound to observe that the sale by the last Conservative Government of the Ministry of Defence housing stock to Annington Homes must have been the biggest privatisation rip-off of the lot. When he sums up, perhaps the Minister will confirm that since that privatisation the Ministry of Defence has paid Annington Homes more in rent than the Government received when the 55,000 dwellings were sold in 1996. What makes the situation even worse is that if those sales of surplus accommodationthere have been many sales of such accommodation and Army landhad been invested in Ministry of Defence housing, all our Army, Navy and Royal Air Force families would now be living in family accommodation that was second to none.
	I shall cite examples from my constituency of Colchester, and I cannot believe that they are isolated. Annington Homes managed to convince everybody that certain houses were so deplorable that they would have to be pulled down. The site has subsequently been sold off; land prices in Colchester are exceptionally high. Annington Homes made a financial killing, and only a tiny percentage came back to the Governmentnot even to the Ministry of Defence.
	I shall give one other example, because the maths involved are easy for me. Some 40 former Ministry of Defence surplus dwellings on a single road had been purchased at an average price of 15,000 at privatisation. They were subsequently sold for 115,000, giving a gross profit of 4 million on just 40 dwellings. That story can be repeated right across the country, wherever Annington Homes has been selling off properties.
	I turn to education matters, in particular the Educating Service Children report, which has 33 recommendations. It would be interesting to know how many of them have been adopted by the Ministry of Defence. I shall concentrate on recommendation 5:
	The MoD and local education authorities should begin planning for the impact that the creation of Super Garrisons will have on pupil numbers in schools located near Service bases.
	Clearly, that recommendation has not been followed through in Colchester with the Ministry of Defence and Essex education authority; there is a proposal to close the secondary school to which the children go from age 11. That was the subject of my Adjournment debate of 22 October last year. Alderman Blaxill school is the smallest secondary school in Colchester; between a fifth and a quarter of its pupils come from Army families and its closure has clearly not been discussed with the MOD. I ask the Minister to look at that issue. Will he and his officials also look at my Adjournment debate of 25 October 1999 on the education of Army children? Clearly, issues raised then have not been addressed.
	Finally in my short contribution I want to mention three primary schools whose pupils come predominantly from services families, in the context of the closure by Essex county council of the hot school meals service in the county. Some 90 per cent. of children at Montgomery infant school are Army children, as are 70 per cent. of Montgomery junior school pupils. No hot meals are provided for them. I suggest that if the Army can provide meals for our service personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq, there should be a system for providing hot school meals to children back in Colchester. About 60 per cent. of children at another school, St. Michael's primary, are also from Army families. I urge the Ministry of Defence to consider seriously the whole question of education provision. It should look at what the Defence Committee said and act accordingly.

Quentin Davies: I have obviously drawn the short straw, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I am grateful at least to have been able to draw one, however short.
	One of the gratifying things about this debate is that it will be apparent to anybody who listens in from outside that there is absolute unanimity among everybody who has spoken, and in all parties in this House, about the importance of the military covenant and the commitment of any Government who send our troops abroad to ensure that they are properly supported, trained and equipped, and that they have fair and decent terms and conditions.
	On that latter point, in my 20 years in the House there have never been a Government who have made so much progress in such a short time. Clearly, one never meets all one's desiderata in life; equally clearly, there will always be public expenditure constraints. However, in the short space of time18 monthsthat the Secretary of State has been in his present role, we have had the introduction of the operational allowance, which is tax-free and amounts to about 2,400 at the end of a six-month deployment; that is very significant. We have had an improved deployment welfare package, including 20 additional days' leave at the end of a six-month deployment. We have had new rules and better ceilings for the compensation scheme. We have had the tax-free council tax rebate. We have had the new military wing at Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham.
	We have had, very importantly and for the first time ever, a cross-Government strategy for military personnel involving the MOD and the other Departments that are so crucial: the Department for Children, Schools and Families, which is important for reasons that the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) mentioned; the Department of Health, which is important in terms of access to dental care and general practitioners as well as the military wings such as those at Selly Oak hospital; the Ministry of Justice which is important because of the sad matter of coroners' inquests; and the Department for Communities and Local Government, which deals with access to council housingI think that everyone in the House greatly welcomes the announcement of the legislation on that subject.
	Last but not least, there is the pay deal, which has been very good, with the lowest ranks achieving 9.2 per cent. I personally express the great hope that this year the Government are again generous, because the military deserve to be treated as a very special case in relation to everybody else. That includes even the police, who may once or twice in their careers face a life-threatening situation, whereas the military live for six months at a time, on one deployment, with the prospect of being killed at any time. That is a very different psychological situation and a very different career pattern to adopt.
	Apart from the covenant that the Government of the day have with the military although, as I said, this Government have a wonderful record, taking into account all the obvious realities and constraintsthere is a wider public covenant with the military. After all, the people who are in Helmand province and in Basra are risking their lives for our sakes. There is no doubt that if the terrorists who attacked last year in London and Glasgow had had the benefit of a six-month training course in Afghanistan in bomb-making and detonation techniques, the results of their endeavours would have been very different. There is no question but that the young men and women who are defending us in Afghanistan are risking their lives for our sakes. The covenant is not confined to the Government; it is an obligation that we all have.
	There is overwhelming support in the country for the armed services in principle, with perhaps a few unfortunate exceptions, to which I shall refer in a moment. People often do not have the opportunities that they would like to express their sense of solidarity with the armed forces. The point has already been well made that there is probably less personal contact with and understanding of the military than there was in previous generations. In the world war two generation, or indeed the national service generation, almost every family had someone in uniform. The situation is very different now, and there are greater opportunities for misunderstandings or simple ignorance. The degree of public support for and understanding of the military is very important, because that is the context in which our armed services operate and recruit. It is also vital for morale, because nothing could be more demoralising than feeling that one is risking one's life for people who are profoundly indifferent to, ignorant about or ill-informed as to what one is doing. Any sense of misunderstanding or misperception is very unfortunate and one would want to remove it.
	Recently, there have been one or two very unfortunate incidents; they were exceptional and egregious, but extremely unattractive incidents. In one case, according to the popular pressI have not yet investigated this directlya soldier in uniform was refused service on the forecourt of a BP service station. That was widely reported. In another incident, which I have investigated, having written to Mr. al-Fayed about it, a soldier was refused admission to Harrods because he was in uniform. That sort of thing is utterly disgraceful. Not very long ago, a woman was apparently insultingly rude about some wounded or crippled soldiers who were using a swimming bath. These unfortunate incidents are, of course, blown up by the popular press, but the fact that they exist must be a matter of deep concern to us.
	That is the context in which the Prime Minister has asked me to undertake a study of national recognition and public understanding of the armed services in order to see what possible measures might be taken and what initiatives might be envisaged to enhance public understanding and respect for the armed services. In that, I am well supported by Air Commodore Martin Sharp, and Bill Clark OBE, who is a senior MOD civil servant. I hope that we can make a modest contribution to improvement in that field, as the Government have so laudably done by fulfilling their obligations under their military compact with the armed services.

Andrew Murrison: I begin by drawing the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests. I would also like to add my expression of admiration for our men and women in uniform, their long-suffering families, veterans and the organisations that look after them and their interests, often unsung. Veterans Aid, an organisation that I visited on Tuesday with my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), is a drop-in centre near Victoria station, and many such organisations are doing similar work unsung, day in and day out, and we must pay tribute to them.
	We have had an interesting and varied debate. A total of 11 Back-Bench speakers have all added, in their individual way, to the debate on this important subject. The right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) said that he was concerned about cadets and how people's exposure to the military may have been reduced in modern times. He might have mentioned the abolition of the Government's school visits teams, which were doing a great deal to increase the profile of the military in our schools but have been replaced by a compact disc.
	The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie) talked about mental health problems. I sincerely recommend that he visit the medical assessment programme at St. Thomas' hospital, which I did on Tuesday. I say in all sincerity that if he did so, he might gain a slightly more profound understanding of some of the extremely complexand in many ways highly technicalissues that relate to mental health, and of the occupational implications of service in the armed forces.
	The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (John Smith) was greatly exercised about training, quite obviously, because MOD St. Athan lies within his constituency. He did not mention the voids and cancellation rates that apply to much of our training effort at the moment as a result of operational pressures and undermanning.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) rightly took exception to the Rowntree report. However, when we recruit people to our armed forces, it is appropriate that we highlight the positive aspects that represent a truthful reflection of what they are likely to be exposed to. Certainly, things such as sport and adventurous training, which have deteriorated in recent years because of operational commitments and pressures, are not quite as obvious an attraction to our young men and women as they were 20 or 25 years ago when I joined up. It is right that we paint an accurate picture of what the future holds in store for our recruits. My right hon. Friend also echoed Lord Guthrie's remarks about the now Prime Minister's apparent disinterest in military matters when he was Chancellor.
	The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) talked about the importance of logistics. Again, that is understandable, given his constituency interest. He was right to mention the importance of in-theatre tracking.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) spoke authoritatively about his battalion and its return to Hounslow barracks. The Secretary of State said that he was interested in Hounslow barracksI am, too, and I would like to visit. Perhaps we can all visit together and the Secretary of State might like to give us a lift.
	The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) talked about health care, which is close to my heart, and the importance of taking a balanced view of the military covenant.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) rightly paid tribute to the Royal British Legion, which has done so much to highlight the military covenant in the past few months. He spoke knowledgeably about suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder, which is related to overstretch and harmony guidelines.
	The hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Joyce) railed against retired top brass. I have one or two things to say about the top brass, but in a slightly different vein.
	I thought that the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) would refer to early-day motion 2030, which he tabled in the previous Session. It related to a windfall tax on our defence suppliers and the impact it may have on our defence community.
	It is important to place what we now call the military covenant in a proper historical context. Rudyard Kipling talked about the trials of Tommy Atkins in 1892. He was observed to be the saviour of his country in wartime but at other times was denigrated by an ungrateful and unappreciative public, who misunderstood him.
	A hundred years on, it seems as though Tommy is still being slighted in some quarters. We have heard about people being told to remove the Queen's uniform in British hospitals, airports, even sports facilities and being refused service in retail outlets. The difference between then and now is that our society is less deferential, less civil and arguably less polite. People's ire today is freely and frankly expressed. Disapproval of the military has been heightened by unpopular conflicts and the Government's failure to win the British people's support for them.
	The military covenant is a deal that is struck in recognition of our troops' willingness to sacrifice everything. It is a tripartite deal, which involves, in equal measure, our armed forces, the people and the Government. According to ex-service chiefs and charities, two of those parties have reneged on the deal. Understanding the public's attitude to the military does not necessarily help us fix it. Tommy Atkins may simply have to put up with the cold shoulder of public opinion, but there is no excuse for the third party to the covenant, the Government, to mirror society in disregarding the Army and its veterans.
	It is odd that the Government should set up an inquiry into the relationship between the people and the military while apparently ignoring their part in the covenant. Given the unpopularity of their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this Government, more than any other, owe it to the armed forces to do the right thing.
	Who can doubt that overstretch and incompletely funded discretionary commitments lie at the heart of the current sad state of affairs? They run as a thread through everything that relates to the armed forces today. Our troops put up with single accommodation for trained soldiers that first-year college students would laugh at. They put up with a gulf between social housing and homes apparently fit for heroes and with a Government who refuse to adopt even the minimal decent homes standards that apply elsewhere. As the Public Accounts Committee said in November, housing is viewed as low-hanging fruit when savings are required.
	Our soldiers put up with inequitable Government funding for Army schoolchildren in counties such as mine. In a letter to me this week, the Minister for Schools and Learners suggested that he would consider a revision to the funding formula to reflect forces children only in the context of people such as migrant workers, whose children also changed schools frequently. No special considerationso much for the military covenant.
	We have seen harmony guidelines routinely breached, with 10 per cent. of the Army's trained strength currently affected and dire consequences for mental, physical and domestic well-being, as we know from a recent study published in the  British Medical Journal. We have seen delayed coroners' inquests, as well as a gross shortage in medical staffing, including a monstrous 55 per cent. shortfall in trained doctors in the Defence Medical Services, and a Government unwilling to say whether increased spending on the NHS has been reflected in full by a commensurate uplift for defence medicine. We see compensation for wounds that looks tawdry when set against settlements for relatively minor industrial injuries.
	All those are examples of how a mismatch between commitments and resources and the traditional grudging attitude of Labour Ministers to the military has fractured the covenant between the armed forces and the Government. The result is that people who can leave do leave, hence the Public Accounts Committee's revelation in July that there are now more than 80 operational pinch points, from medics to aircrew. That is why 1,344 Army officers quit in the final six months of last year, which was twice the comparable six-month figure for 2005-06 and three times the figure for 2004-05.
	Unfortunately time is extremely limited, but I have two anecdotes that exemplify fairly well the problems that we face through the Government's and the public's attitude to our military. The new year has already brought us two bad weather stories that, in their own different ways, encapsulate the shoddy way in which the public and the Government deal with our troops. The first anecdote is about 200 homecoming soldiers who were apparently ordered to strip off their desert combats on freezing tarmac before entering the terminal building at Birmingham airport, to which they had been diverted because of fog at Brize Norton. An airport spokesman said that
	certain airlines may refuse to accept personnel in military uniform.
	Will the Minister clarify who told those soldiers to remove the Queen's uniform and assure the House that whoever it was has been rigorously re-briefed? Will he also undertake to blacklist any airline that presumes to stipulate that our servicemen may not fly in rig?
	Fog at Brize was apparently also responsible for the diversion of 130 soldiers returning from Basra to Prestwick in a horrific 36-hour transit fiasco that got them back to their home base in Wiltshire at 5 am on Christmas day. Why were soldiers left stranded at Prestwick, armed only with a railway warrant? Why was the charter flight sent over dozens of fog-free English airports to dump those troops at Prestwick? On Christmas eve, why did somebody from Whitehall's newly refurbished, incredibly plush MOD retirement home for the top brass not get their finger out to ensure that those boys and girls got home on time?
	Is it not the truth that the Government's commitment to honouring the covenant does not extend to replacing clapped-out airframes, showing bargain-basement contract operators the door and coughing up the paltry runway dues or whatever else it takes to get our people home for Christmas? I look forward to hearing the fogbound Minister's account of what on earth was happening on both those occasions and to listening to what he thinks they say about our commitment to the military covenant.

Bob Ainsworth: At the end of that we have to remind ourselves that the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) started his contribution by telling us how our society had become less polite.
	I am replying to a shortened debate with a shortened contribution. I am sorry that I will not be able to respond to all the points that have been raised, but I thought that it was more important that the hon. Gentleman and I should both agree to shorten our contributions to enable those who have made the effort to turn up to speak. There is a degree of expertise in the House that is recognised on both sides. I will do my best in the time remaining to respond to the many points that have been made and will write to hon. Members afterwards if I do not manage to cover the issues that they raised.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) asked me about super-garrisons and our continued commitment to them. We are indeed still committed to the creation of super-garrisons. He is right that they will offer opportunities for improved individual development and have the potential to give stability to Army families. I know that he is anxious that we should do something in Staffordhe is relentless in his representations on behalf of his constituencybut such issues are complicated and are tied up with the issue of bringing home troops from Germany, as he said. We are looking to travel in the direction that he would want us to travel in, but not necessarily at the speed at which he would want things done.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) welcomed the Command Paper and raised a couple of important points that are worth addressing. First, he asked about the appropriate role for charities and for the Government? We have a long-established principle in this country that charities should play a role. Is there any hon. Member in any political party who wants to see that diminished, who does not want it continued, who does not acknowledge the fantastic work that many military charities do and have done over many years? It is not for the Government to do everything, but of course the Government have responsibilities and must discharge them. There is no way that we want to disincentivise the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, the Royal British Legion and all the other organisations that support our military.
	Secondly, my hon. Friend, along with other Members, raised the issue of inquests. We are making progress on inquests, as we have given additional resources to both the Oxford and the Wiltshire coroners to enable them to do more. As part of the Command Paper, we are looking into whether we should do more to support service families in their bereavement. I accept my hon. Friend's point that changing this may not necessarily be my top priority, but I ask other hon. Members who call for a change to think very seriously about what they want us to do with the coroner service.
	The Ministry of Defence is represented by lawyers at only a minoritya small minorityof coroners' inquests. If we want to give families legal aid in order for them to be represented at such inquests, we are effectively saying that lawyers should have a role in them, which fundamentally changes the nature of coroners' courts. I do not know whether Members really want that fundamental change and I am not at all sure that that is the best use of the money we have to support families, particularly bereaved families. There is a lot more that we could and should do, so we are looking into that as part of the Command Paper.
	The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) felt that other Government Departments were falling down and not necessarily doing the business, leaving the military to hold the baby, as it were, in areas of operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was present when the Prime Minister announced the next steps for Afghanistan, recognising the need for a comprehensive approach. We acknowledge the hon. Gentleman's point that the military can do only so much and that other organisationsnot just our own Government organisationshave a role to play. The politics of Iraq underpins some of these issues and it is the politicians of Iraq who can and should pick them up and take them forward. They have the ability, the wherewithal and the finances to do so. Our military cannot be blamed if everything has not been put in place at the appropriate time, when they have done a good job in providing the stability that has allowed progress to be made in the first place.

Tobias Ellwood: One subject that I have discussed with the Secretary of State is the introduction of a co-ordinator or a lead figure in Afghanistan to join together the work of all the key bodiesthe EU, the Department for International Development, the United States Agency for International Development and so forth. There has been a great deal of talk about that, including from the former Prime Minister and our current Prime Minister, so can the Minister update the House on what is happening about this appointment? I understand that there is tentative agreement between the EU and UN about this appointment, which is timely when Tom Koenigs, head of the current UN Afghanistan operation, has retired.

Bob Ainsworth: We will update the House on that, but it is not appropriate to spend much time on it in an already shortened debate. There is no huge disagreement between what the hon. Gentleman is saying in principle and what we agree needs to be decided on those issues.
	The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) talked about homes, particularly the contract for Annington Homes. He is right: we still live with the consequences of that contract. As he said, we have paid more in rent than we have received. However, the contract was entered into and we must honour it. The company had the good fortune to buy property at the bottom of the market at a time when it was impossible to lose.
	The hon. Gentleman said something that has been said repeatedly in the House. As the Secretary of State said in his opening speech, we recognise what still needs to be done to improve accommodation, but let us stop this nonsense about half our accommodation being substandard by any measure. The standards that we use to measure our service accommodation are higher than the standards applied in civilian lifeand rightly soand we have aspirations to ensure that our people live in the best grade of accommodation. The fact that we are not prepared to lower our aspirations should not allow people to exaggerate the situation. There are people who must put up with bad accommodation, and I accept that it is 100 per cent. bad for them, but huge progress is being made. Money is being spent and has been spent over a long period, and we have plans for continued spending which the Secretary of State set out.

John Baron: rose

Bob Ainsworth: The hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron), whom I was about to mention, made an extraordinary speech. He came pretty close to saying that we needed to spend an extra 5 billion on defence. He claimed that people going out to theatre did not have body armour, and that we did not listen to our troops. He should go and have a look. Everyone going out to theatre has his own body armour. It is irresponsible to say in the House that that is not true, and that we are sending people into theatre without body armour.
	I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman genuinely believes that we should spend an extra 5 billion on defence, but if he does, he will have a job to do with those on his own Front Bench as well as with the Government. Not a single party in the House has committed itself to increased defence spending, notwithstanding all the extravagant claims that are made. The hon. Gentleman needs to discuss that with his own party as well as others.

John Baron: Will the Minister give way?

Bob Ainsworth: I am afraid that I am very short of time.
	The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie), the Liberal Democrat spokesman, said that we needed an extra 7,000 people in the Army and we had no budget for recruiting. I remind him that a month or so ago his party presented the House with a paper describing its commitment to the armed forces, and a disclaimer: By the way, we have not put any budget into this. That was a rather bigger commitment than the commitment to recruitment. We have recruitment capability the length and breadth of the country, and it is budgeted for. I hope that the hon. Gentleman did not mean that. I think he was saying that we needed additional resources for recruitment, but if his party cannot include any commitment in a strategic paper, claiming that we are letting our armed forces down and then saying that there is no money attached to its proposals, he hardly has a case for saying that we have no money for recruitment.
	The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), who opened the debate for the Conservative party, attacked the Prime Minister again for the figures that he claimed in relation to Iraq. The Prime Minister came to the House and said that by Christmas there would be 4,500 of our troops in Iraq. They were; they are. It is no good the hon. Gentleman going around talking about regional variations and throwing out figures. Of course figures will go up and down. As we RIPrelief in placetroops in and out of theatre and make other commitments in the near-theatre area, there will be fluctuations; the hon. Gentleman knows that. What was said in the House was that our troop numbers would be down at 4,500 by Christmas, and they are.  [Interruption.] They are down to the figure that was said. The hon. Gentleman also claimed that we were short of helicopters; he should know that we have increased helicopter flying hours
	 It being Six o'clock, the motion lapsed, without Question put.

RYAN KENNEDY

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. [Siobhain McDonagh.]

Angela Smith: I thank the Speaker for selecting this topic for this evening's debate, as it gives me a chance to air an appalling case involving the Child Support Agency, which raises important points of principle that require debate and resolution.
	I need to start by outlining the basic details of the case, which started on 5 February 2007 when a constituent of mine, Ryan Kennedy, was contacted by the CSA to inform him that he had been named as the father of a six-year-old child. He did not think that he was the father of the child, but he wanted things to be sorted out as quickly as possible so he co-operated with the agency in having the DNA testing carried out immediatelywithin the two-week required period. He conformed entirely with CSA regulations; indeed, he did so partly because he was told that if he refused to co-operate he would automatically be declared the father of the child.
	Mr. Kennedy spent the 200 on the test, and then heard nothing. Bearing in mind that that was in February 2007, he repeatedly contacted the CSA, was passed on from individual to individual and had telephone calls ignored, and in the end, in desperation, he came to my office to see if I could move things forward for him. Indeed, it took me some time to get some clarification from the CSA, but it emerged that the mother of the child had refused to have the DNA test done either on herself or on the child involved.
	I would like to read a statement made by my constituent, which exhibits the burning sense of injustice felt by him at this point in the proceedings:
	I was given a two-week deadline otherwise action would be taken. How can this happen where there is one rule for one and one rule for another?
	He then went on to tell the man from the CSA how desperate he felt and that
	I would be seeking legal action upon which he said ok and put the phone down on me.
	My constituent felt that he was being required by law to have the test done, otherwise he would be declared the father of the child and be liable to payments, whereas the woman naming him as the father of the child was not forced to have the test done on herself.
	My constituent described to me the impact the situation had on his healthhe was so affected that he could not sleep properly. He was clearly distressedso much so that he broke down in my surgery. On telling me that he was getting married this year2008he immediately impressed upon me the critical nature of the situation he was in. He was getting married and at the stage when the arrangements were being madehe was buying a housesuddenly there was a child on the horizon whom nobody knew about.
	My constituent asked me to write to the CSA and, finally, after a number of telephone calls that I myself had to make to the agency on the hotlineI could not even get my staff to do that as they were not getting anywhereon 18 September I received a written response. Frankly, it was appalling, as it spelled out a situation that is clearly discriminatory. It stated:
	If a parent with care does not comply with the Agency regarding a child support application we can take the following action.
	As the first step, if the
	parent with care is in receipt of a prescribed benefitthe parent with care would incur a financial penalty which would affect the amount of benefit either they or their household receive. This penalty would remain in place until such times as they complied with the Agency or ceased to be in receipt of
	a benefit. However, if the parent with care is a private client
	the Agency would close the parent with care's application for child support.
	In other words, if the mother was on benefit, the case on my constituent would be kept open, but if she was not on benefit, it would be closed. That is clearly discriminatory and unsatisfactory.
	What made the situation worse was a paragraph further down in the letter. It said that Mr. Kennedy had
	been advised that the application will remain open and effective from the first contact date with him if it is established at a later date that he is indeed the father of Warren.
	Given that the CSA can claim payments from parents without care until the age of maturity, which in most cases is 19, my constituent faced a situation where he could be told at any time over a 13-year period that he was the father of this child and he would have the claim for maintenance payments backdated. It does not take a mathematician to work out that someone on an average salary, which is approximately 20,000 a year in Sheffield, would face a substantial backdated claim over a period of years.
	Something had to be done. I wrote to the Minister on 20 September asking for amendments to the law, especially given that we had the opportunity to do that easily because legislation was going through Parliament. That approach led to an ongoing correspondence with Ministers in the other place and the CSA, and in turn to two outcomes. First, on 21 December, my constituent's case was resolved, but only because the parent with care ceased to claim benefits. The case was thus closed and we were informed of that fact.
	Secondly, on 7 December, we received a letter from the Department's Minister in the other place, which made it clear that there could be a way forward in terms of the general principle applying in this case. It stated:
	The Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill...includes a clause which repeals section 6 of the Child Support Act 1991. If section 6 is repealed it will mean that parents with care claiming benefits will no longer be required to apply for child maintenance through the state system. Therefore, where the mother refuses to comply with Agency regulations the case will be closed.
	To that extent, the progress made has been satisfactory, but the case raises a number of points. First, I want to draw attention to the inadequacy of the responses that we have received, in the context of the lack of awareness demonstrated to an individual caught up in a situation clearly not of his own making. Secondly, I want to discuss the discrimination and the human rights implications of the case. I then wish to ask three questions of the Minister.
	After the months of evasion by the CSA, which I have described, and frustration on the part of my constituent, we received the letter dated 18 September that I mentioned. It set out the position relating to Mr. Kennedythe situation was clearly unsatisfactory at that pointand finished with a statement that I found astounding. It stated:
	Although Mr. Kennedy was unhappy with this response the Agency can confirm that it has followed all the appropriate guidelines and legislation in addressing the issue of establishing if he is the father.
	To say that he was unhappy with the response was an understatement.
	No sense of understanding of my constituent's position was given in that final paragraph. The CSA did not seem to be bothered about trying to understand the perspective of my constituent and how he might feel about the situation; it only seemed to be bothered about the fact that it was in the clear legally and that it had not done anything wrong. That seemed to be all the CSA was going to say about the matter. Its attitude was, He can live with it. We are okay. We have not done anything wrong. We are just applying the law as it stands.
	In further discussions that I had with CSA staff, rather unusually, a different attitude was demonstrated. When I discussed the matter on the phone and when the position became clear, a degree of sympathy was shown, and that was more than welcome. That was the first time that I experienced that kind of personalised response to a case in my conversations with the CSA.
	The initial ministerial response that I received from the other place was equally disappointing. I got my first response on 23 October, which advised me that if my constituent was unhappy with the situation, he should go to court to try to obtain a declaration of non-parentage under the Family Law Act 1986. The response made it clear that the Department for Work and Pensions did not think that the law needed to be changed, but what kind of response was that? After all, my constituent was not in a situation of his own making. He could not afford to go to court to resolve the issue and he had complied at every stage with the CSA regulations. Why should citizens of this country have to take drastic legal action to resolve a situation when they have done nothing wrong, have not broken any law and do not have to defend any action against them? It is down to Parliament to resolve such difficultiessuch legal complicationsto ensure that the situation does not arise again with the CSA or any body that replaces it.
	The responses we received were clear evidence of discriminatory practices. First, a differentiation is made between parents who claim benefits and those who do not. That is clearly discriminatory, although it looks as though it will be resolved through changes to the legislation. My constituent suffered the knock-on effect of that discrimination. Because the woman who had named him as the father of the child was claiming benefit, he was liable to be held on the CSA's books for 13 years. If she had not been on benefit and had made a private claim, that would not have happened. That is clearly discriminatory. The problem was compounded in this case because the individual had done nothing wrong, and certainly nothing to deserve such discrimination.
	The case also has human rights implications. If someone is kept on the books of an organisation for up to 13 yearsup to 19 years in some casesthey will face huge costs over the period, and not just financial. There are the psychological costs, as well as the possible impact on any marriage and the decision on whether to start a family. The threat posed by the CSA to keep the claim on the books for that period had a huge impact on the life of Mr. Kennedy. I repeat the point that I made in a letter to the Department:
	If this Government is about anything, it is about equality and individual rights. I think in these circumstances the Government is falling short of these exemplary aspirations.
	I look to the Minister today for answers, in the hope that we can resolve the discrimination and human rights issues raised by this case.
	I would also like clarification of some points of principle from the Minister. If section 6 of the Child Support Act 1991 is to be repealed by Parliament, can the Minister confirm that that will release individuals such as my constituent from the threat that is held over them? In other words, can the Minister confirm that it will not happen again?
	When the legislation has gone through Parliament, will it be applied retrospectively? Can the Minister confirm that individuals currently caught in similar situations with the CSA will be able to resolve their cases under the provisions of the new legislation?
	Finally, there is the important issue of the DNA. I do not believe that individuals who are arrested and never charged should have their DNA samples held by the state. In this case, Mr. Kennedy was not arrested, he did nothing wrong and he was not charged with any crime. In the end, he was not even charged money for giving the sample. Surely it is only right that the DNA sample should be destroyed. Will the Minister confirm that DNA samples that are proved to be redundant to CSA claims and processes are destroyed?
	This is the by far the worst case involving the CSA with which I have ever had to deal, and that is saying something. I think that most hon. Members will agree that the CSA is a difficult agency to deal with. My constituent wanted the matter raised even though his case has now been resolved because he does not want the same to happen to anyone else. He has compromised his confidentiality to allow me to put the case on the record. That shows how strongly he feels about the year of hell that he has been through. How many others are in the same situation? It would be interesting to know. I look forward to the Minister's response.

James Plaskitt: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) on bringing up the case, as she has the right to do, and on the way in which she has done so. I have looked at the file and the case history and can only agree that it is an appalling case. I shall explain in a moment what the Child Support Agency has done about it and about some of the wider implications that arose.
	I am grateful to Mr. Kennedy for having forgone his right to privacy and allowed my hon. Friend to discuss his case. I can understand how, having gone through what he has, he might have wished to preserve his anonymity. However, despite having endured what he has as a result of the mistakes made, he is acting on behalf of others by allowing my hon. Friend to mention his case to ensure that such things do not happen to other people. That is a noble action, in the circumstances, given what he has had to endure as a result of the agency's mistakes.
	I heard what my hon. Friend said about the inadequacy of the responses that she received from the agency in the early stages of her inquiryboth from the hotline and in written correspondence. From what she has said, it sounds as though some information provided by the agency in written correspondence was not correct. That should not happen, either. I reassure her that we have been aware for some time of issues about the hotline and the speediness and accuracy of written responses. Action has been taken to improve both and I am sure that both have been considerably improved since she took up the case.
	Mr. Kennedy will, I am sure, be grateful to have an MP who has pursued his case with such assiduousness when bringing the issues to the attention of the Government in order, we hope, to resolve matters. As my hon. Friend has said, many matters have been resolved in the case but the bigger issues that have emerged still need to be dealt with. I shall direct most of my comments at them.
	I want first to apologise to Mr. Kennedy for the distress and frustration that he has experienced since February 2007. As my hon. Friend outlined, the issues are difficult and sensitive, and the agency should clearly have handled the case far better than it did. As she said, the case was closed on 20 December, at the request of the parent with care when she moved off benefit and became a private client. However, despite that positive outcome for Mr Kennedy, we must not lose sight of the difficult issues at the heart of the case. I should like to run through the facts of the case to aid our understanding of the issues highlighted.
	In response to my hon. Friend's concerns, the Child Support Agency carried out an investigation into the circumstances that led it to contact her constituent. That investigation has concluded that the information that the agency had received from the mother of the child in question was insufficient to justify contacting Mr. Kennedy in the first place. The agency should not have approached Mr. Kennedy at all, and I very much regret that it did so. Given the impact that the agency's involvement has had on Mr. Kennedy, I am pleased to advise my hon. Friend that it intends to award him a significant consolatory payment, to reflect the gross inconvenience that has been caused to him.
	That leaves us with the three issues that my hon. Friend raised: how it came about that the agency contacted Mr. Kennedy in the first place, what it could have done to resolve his paternity dispute, and what action it will take in the future to prevent similar problems arising.
	On the first point, the facts are that the mother of the child in question applied to the CSA for maintenance for her child in September 2005. She was obliged to do so, because she had claimed a prescribed benefit. The information that she gave about the father of the child consisted solely of a name and a past but not very specific address. The agency's internal procedures in such cases require staff to gather sufficient information to make a positive matchfor example full name, date of birth, address, and/or place of employment. I am sorry to say that the agency did not do that in the case of Mr. Kennedy. Instead of returning to the child's mother for any further information that she might have had, it made the incorrect assumption that my hon. Friend's constituent was the same Mr. Kennedy named by the child's mother. Of course, he was notas the agency would have realised if it had followed procedure.
	In response to the agency's contact in February 2007, Mr. Kennedy denied that he was the father of the child. He agreed to take a DNA test to resolve the matter, and by early March 2007 had done so. The child's mother, however, did not. In such instances, the usual action for the agency is to ask the benefit-paying authorityin this case, Jobcentre Plusto reduce the benefit of the parent with care to encourage her to consent to a DNA test. The agency eventually did that in June 2007.
	I turn now to the second point. In cases such as this, where paternity cannot be resolved, the CSA is unable to force a parent with care to comply with DNA testing. The mother remained non-compliant, and the agency did not make any further progress with the case. On the assumption that it had contacted the right Mr. Kennedy in the first place, it could have resolved the matter by obtaining a declaration of non-parentage from the courts. Dealing with the matter in that way almost certainly would have resulted in the courts directing that a DNA test be carried out. Had the mother refused to comply with the court's direction, the court would have been able to draw inferences from that in deciding whether or not the alleged non-resident parent was indeed the father.
	Taking that action would have prevented Mr. Kennedy from facing months of uncertainty as to whether he was the father of the child and therefore liable to pay maintenance for that child. The agency did not take that action, but it should have done. Once more, I apologise for that on its behalf. I thank my hon. Friend for her involvement, as it was helpful in bringing this matter to the agency's attention and thus helping us to resolve it.
	My hon. Friend has rightly pointed out that had the case been a private one, the agency would have been able to close the case as soon as the DNA test was refused, thus preventing the situation from occurring in the first place. However, as the mother was included in a claim for income support, the agency was obliged to keep the case open. Child support legislation does not currently allow the Secretary of State the discretion to close cases of that typecommonly called section 6 casesand it does not allow the agency to close down the potential liability created by its initial contact with Mr. Kennedy. In other words, had the parent with care later co-operated and had Mr. Kennedy been found to be the child's father, he would have been liable for maintenance back to the date on which we first contacted him. In any case, closing the case would not have resolved the paternity dispute.
	On 20 December 2007, the agency learned that the parent with care was no longer in receipt of benefit and contacted her to see whether she wished to continue using the agency. She advised that she did not and the case was closed, effective from the date on which she first applied. However, as I have already said, that positive outcome does not excuse the frustration and difficulties experienced by Mr. Kennedy, and I shall now outline what we are doing to ensure that such cases are handled better in future.
	The principal failure in Mr. Kennedy's case was the agency's decision to contact him without taking reasonable steps to assure itself that he was the Mr. Kennedy named by the mother. That was due to staff not following internal procedures as they should have done. That is quite unacceptable. In the light of this, the agency has plans in place to write to all its staff reminding them of the need to gather sufficient information to make a positive match before contacting an alleged non-resident parent.
	The repeal of section 6 of the Child Support Act 1991 by the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill, which is now going through Parliament, will also mean that parents with care claiming benefit are no longer automatically treated as making a claim for child support, allowing for cases such as this to be closed in the same way as they are for private clients. That will deal with my hon. Friend's point about inconsistency of treatment.
	My hon. Friend asked whether our contractor has destroyed Mr. Kennedy's DNA sample. I can confirm that it has been destroyed. DNA samples are held by the agency's contracted supplier of DNA testing and access is restricted to laboratory staff. The contactor destroys samples after three months and all case records are destroyed one year after the case has been resolved. If it is not resolved, the sample will be destroyed on the agency's request.
	My hon. Friend also asked whether the section 6 repeal will allow this issue to be raised in relation to existing cases. I confirm that it will, so not only future cases but current ones will be with the maintenance commission.
	I hope that my response has provided my hon. Friend with some reassurance that the flaws in the child support system uncovered by that very bad case are being dealt with, both through the measures in the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill and through operational policy changes within the agency.
	Once again, I apologise for the distress caused to Mr. Kennedy by the way in which the agency handled the case, which was inexcusable. In addition to the measures that I have outlined this evening, I shall write to him myself, on behalf of my Department, to express my regret about the way in which the agency mishandled the case and the consequent distress caused to him. I think that I owe him that, on the agency's behalf. I again thank my hon. Friend for bringing the case to the attention of the House and for giving me the opportunity to respond in full to the points that she has raised.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Six o'clock.